iMac Install Problem

[markoid63]

My sister in laws 2011 iMac got a problem where it would take forever to boot and was generally slow. I tried to do a Time Machine install, but it caused even more problems. Now it will only boot into the Utilities menu, disk utility says Hard Drive is fine, permissions are okay. I have tried to do a fresh install, but I get a crossed circle once it boots into the USB. She had Yosemite running, but the help menus shows it would have been installed with Mavericks. I can't find Mavericks to download anywhere, I'm assuming this is the problem, it needs to see the original OS install. Repair won't work, reinstall from menu says file is missing. Can anyone offer any help at all, I'm completely stumped.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Juicy Box]

I would suspect the HDD starting to fail. You can try using Apple HW Diagnostic test by pressing and holding the "D" during start-up, but in my experience, Apple's HW Diagnostic Tests gives a lot of false negatives, especially when it comes to HDDs.

Do you have another Mac to use? Let me know which one.

If not, I would do an install to an external drive just to see if everything runs okay. You can use a Thunderbolt Drive, FireWire, USB2 (such as HDD, SSD, or even a thumb drive), or SD card as a temporary boot drive to troubleshoot.

Try using Internet Recovery Mode to install the OS onto the external drive.
Do this by totally shutting down the Mac, then as soon as you press the power button to start it up, press the "Command/Apple" key and "Alt/Option" key and "R" key all at the same time. Keep them pressed until you see a spinning globe.

In my experience, Internet Recovery Mode can take a while to boot, but once it does, it works well.

Install what ever option they give you in internet recovery, and see if the Mac Runs okay. Keep in mind that depending on the external option you are using as a boot drive, that it could still be kind of slow, but most likely a lot better than a failing HDD if that is what your problem is.

The Mid-2011 iMac runs 10.13 High Sierra really well, so once everything is up and running, I would do an install of that, especially since it still gets security updates.

 

[markoid63]

I would suspect the HDD starting to fail. You can try using Apple HW Diagnostic test by pressing and holding the "D" during start-up, but in my experience, Apple's HW Diagnostic Tests gives a lot of false negatives, especially when it comes to HDDs.

Do you have another Mac to use? Let me know which one.

If not, I would do an install to an external drive just to see if everything runs okay. You can use a Thunderbolt Drive, FireWire, USB2 (such as HDD, SSD, or even a thumb drive), or SD card as a temporary boot drive to troubleshoot.

Try using Internet Recovery Mode to install the OS onto the external drive.
Do this by totally shutting down the Mac, then as soon as you press the power button to start it up, press the "Command/Apple" key and "Alt/Option" key and "R" key all at the same time. Keep them pressed until you see a spinning globe.

In my experience, Internet Recovery Mode can take a while to boot, but once it does, it works well.

Install what ever option they give you in internet recovery, and see if the Mac Runs okay. Keep in mind that depending on the external option you are using as a boot drive, that it could still be kind of slow, but most likely a lot better than a failing HDD if that is what your problem is.

The Mid-2011 iMac runs 10.13 High Sierra really well, so once everything is up and running, I would do an install of that, especially since it still gets security updates.

First up, thanks for the reply. What size drive and what format does it need to be for the external drive? Does it ask for the target install location? I have a 2013 iMac running Catalina as my computer. I tried to install High Sierra from USB drive but it came up with the circle with a slash. Sorry for the questions but I’ve never installed to an external drive before or had this problem doing a fresh install. BTW, I did a format of the main drive using disk utility.

 

[markoid63]

Well the issue was a dead hard drive, which I did suspect. New drive installed, all working fine.