During the installation of High Sierra on a MacBook A1342 the installation fails, returning the error message; 'An error occurred whilst preparing the installation. Try running this application again'. I am re-installing High Sierra as this MacBook previously crashed. It was running macOS High Sierra without any difficulties before this. I have also already tried setting the date and time via Terminal.
MacBook, A1342
Try installing in Safe Mode:
Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support
Yes, you are correct. You can't boot in Safe Mode from a disk without an OS. If you have a Time Machine backup you can restore from that. But it may restore the problem also.
How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe I can do this as I have already formatted my hard drive after the Mac crashed.
High Sierra installation fails
