Internet Recovery loop from hell.

[dandeco]

Maybe I'll take one of these problematic Airs and use it on my secure home Internet, and see if that works. Then once it's reset and ready, I can bring it back into work to be logged and ready for resell. I've done it before.

I tried. So far, I've only had luck with getting one all wiped, re-installed and ready for resell, since I have to use Internet Recovery to install the MacOS on a T2 chip-equipped Mac to check if it's still managed, change the security settings to enable booting from an external drive, then wipe the drive and re-install the MacOS (i.e. the highest version it'll support). The other three I've been working on, I've had no luck with getting Internet Recovery to load onto them, Wi-Fi or Ethernet. I wonder if it has something to do with the drive not being initialized, and/or the battery apparently being dead (the one that worked still has a good battery).

I was able to get another to load the Internet Recovery Mode and start installing the MacOS. Since this one has a 512 GB SSD, I may consider using this one as a work computer, for running the latest version of Apple Configurator 2 and any future reviving and restoring of Macs with T2 chips, now that my 2015 Retina 15" MacBook Pro can't run the latest Apple Configurator and doesn't have Thunderbolt 3. (For now I have to bring my M1 MacBook Air into work for this.) But the first attempt at this, it hung at "Less than a minute remaining..." while the status bar was nearly halfway through. This second attempt after resetting the NVRAM and SMC and rebooting the Air, I started the second part of the install a little over and hour from posting this, and the bar went all the way to the end, but it's still seeming to hang there. I'm gonna let it sit this way through most of my shift to see what happens next. If it's not done anything before I punch out, I will reset the NVRAM and SMC, and reboot the Air again and see if that does anything overnight.

 

[shmergy]

I will give that a shot, the local repair shop seems pretty well versed, they are technically an apple authorized service center. They are right next to a fairly large college campus (at least for around here), I am guessing they see lots of macs. I talked with a tech and he said they will diagnose for free, then give me a flat fee price for repair, but he is convinced that as long as the hard drive isn't fried, he can get the OS on it, that would be $109. I am still going to do a couple things before I bring it in, just need to get it to my office, hopefully tonight.

I bought it used, upgraded to a better version of the same thing and sold this one to my Brother so my upgrade was only about $750 minus all this BS

I’m having exact the same issue. Did you ever manage to get it working again?

 

[dandeco]

I tried. So far, I've only had luck with getting one all wiped, re-installed and ready for resell, since I have to use Internet Recovery to install the MacOS on a T2 chip-equipped Mac to check if it's still managed, change the security settings to enable booting from an external drive, then wipe the drive and re-install the MacOS (i.e. the highest version it'll support). The other three I've been working on, I've had no luck with getting Internet Recovery to load onto them, Wi-Fi or Ethernet. I wonder if it has something to do with the drive not being initialized, and/or the battery apparently being dead (the one that worked still has a good battery).

I was able to get another to load the Internet Recovery Mode and start installing the MacOS. Since this one has a 512 GB SSD, I may consider using this one as a work computer, for running the latest version of Apple Configurator 2 and any future reviving and restoring of Macs with T2 chips, now that my 2015 Retina 15" MacBook Pro can't run the latest Apple Configurator and doesn't have Thunderbolt 3. (For now I have to bring my M1 MacBook Air into work for this.) But the first attempt at this, it hung at "Less than a minute remaining..." while the status bar was nearly halfway through. This second attempt after resetting the NVRAM and SMC and rebooting the Air, I started the second part of the install a little over and hour from posting this, and the bar went all the way to the end, but it's still seeming to hang there. I'm gonna let it sit this way through most of my shift to see what happens next. If it's not done anything before I punch out, I will reset the NVRAM and SMC, and reboot the Air again and see if that does anything overnight.

Well, it turns out this particular MacBook Air had a bad battery! I took it home and swapped the battery, and that brought its' performance and speed back to normal, and now I use it as a work computer!

 

[PaulD-UK]

It might be that ‘The battery has to be charged to at least 50% before the OS can be installed’ - like iOS devices…..

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I got similar issue on my iMac 2009 with Firepro M6100 installed.
It has a working High Sierra internal disk.
The iMac boot directly to High Sierra and refuse to response to all kind of key press.
In the end, I had to took out the internal drive (it was easy with my iMac 2009) and wipe it clean on another machine, then reflash the FireProM6100m to get a boot screen and did a clean install of Mac OS Monterey.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I will give that a shot, the local repair shop seems pretty well versed, they are technically an apple authorized service center. They are right next to a fairly large college campus (at least for around here), I am guessing they see lots of macs. I talked with a tech and he said they will diagnose for free, then give me a flat fee price for repair, but he is convinced that as long as the hard drive isn't fried, he can get the OS on it, that would be $109. I am still going to do a couple things before I bring it in, just need to get it to my office, hopefully tonight.

I bought it used, upgraded to a better version of the same thing and sold this one to my Brother so my upgrade was only about $750 minus all this BS

My question is pure curiosity.
All key combinations were disregarded by the iMac so it booted directly to the recovery volume of the internal disk.
But at the screen of selecting network, both your mouse and keyboard are still working, ist that correct?

Now, all of the error codes in your description points into 1 type: Internet Connection errors.
2003f, 2002f, 2100f and 1008f

It would be amusing to hear the result as:

The repairman said that the Internet Recovery ran smoothly at his shop, no problem detected and you got newly installed Mac OS on your iMac.

But anyway, your problem would be solve, with minimal cost, and your iMac works again.

Good luck and cheers.

In Internet Recovery, these low negative thousands error messages indicate that your provided Wi-Fi Network is inadequate in some fashion, and cannot be used (for this purpose) in its current state.

Common problems include:
Hidden Network-name
required use of a proxy server to get Internet access
required use of a login page to get Internet access
Use of a login server or certificate to get Internet access
Use of PPPoE in the Mac to get Internet access (typically only applies to DSL)
Use of Fixed IP address rather than good old DHCP
Variance of the time by more than five minutes
Failure of Router to provide workable DNS server addresses, or providing 0.0.0.0 [may produce -2002f]

The higher the number, the more obscure the problem.