IMac – Stuck in recovery mode and unable to install OS X El Capitan

hard driveimacmacosrecoverystartup

Hi to anyone able to help with this / having the same problem…

I use a 2009 iMac A1224 20" with a SSD, running macOS El Capitan (the shop which installed the SSD also installed El Capitan back in 2018.)

I recently been having some problems – spinning beach-ball, white screen / load bar freezing at 50% during start up.

I cleared out disk space, installed updates, reset PRAM and verified the drive – none of this seemed to help.

Luckily it does actually start up every 1/20 times, so I've backed everything up externally.

Initially I tried to re-install macOS, entering recovery mode using Command + R or Command + Option + R but only got in with Command + Option + Shift + R – I don't know if that's because it is an old model?

When trying to re-install El Capitan I keep getting "This item is Temporarily unavailable" with my Apple ID. I've tried two old Apple IDs and had not luck either. I've logging in to my new/current iCloud and Apple ID (made after these problems started happening) and seen my iMac is listed under my devices.

I recently tried erasing the SSD / Macintosh HD but it's not made any difference. Now when I start up I loads straight into Recovery Mode automatically.

Also since erasing my SSD, the newly named partitions do not appear in the Recovery Mode Startup Manager – the section 'Choose Startup Disk: Select The system you want to use' is now blank.

I am stuck in recovery mode and unable to install macOS X El Capitan.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

Best Answer

Everything you said tells me "hard drive failure." It is not uncommon for a system to have boot issues when the hard drive is failing. The fact that you can't see the other partition and "this item is temporarily unavailable makes it sound like that's the issue.

Often when you try to reinstall the OS with a failing hard drive, you will get errors. This is primarily due to the hard drive having to write a file (the new OS) to the entire hard drive, whereas if you're using it, you're only accessing specific parts of the hard drive. You may have been avoiding that one "failing" spot, but when reinstalling the OS, it hit it.

I'd highly recommend taking it to an Apple Store or AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) and have them run a diagnostics check on it to verify. Or if you have an external bootable usb drive, attempt to boot into that.

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The difference between the 500gb and Mac HD is pretty simple actually. The parent is the actual hard drive that holds the partition (Mac HD). You use that to re-partition if you want to split or change the partition table.

So you should use the Mac HD if you just want to erase and install.

The disk1 in your screenshot is the recovery partition. You probably can't erase it or remove it (not sure as I haven't tried). The icon indicates that it is a mounted drive and not an actual hard drive.

So click the Macintosh HD, erase, format, target for install. It's not long ago I did the same on my MacBook Pro.

Happy fresh laptop!

MacOS – Can’t boot into OS X Recovery Mode

From the results you posted, I can see the GUID for the Recovery partition is wrong. This is partition number 3 in the tables. The correct value in the GPT would be 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC. The fdisk command also shows the value to be wrong in the MBR table. Here, the correct value should be AB. If you can not boot to your Recovery partition after repairing these tables, then I would assume the contents of the partition is corrupted.

As far as I know, there is no utility in OS X for this type of repair. (Technically, you could use the dd command, but no sane person would attempt using dd to fix this problem.) I would recommend downloading and installing the gdisk command from here. To install, you may have to modify the setting on the "Security & Privacy" pane of the "System Preferences".

To use the gdisk command, you will need to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP). Normally, this can be done while in Recovery mode. Since you can not boot to Recovery mode, you can use a product called "rEFInd". Many Linux users already have this product installed on their Mac computer. If you do not, you can create a USB flash drive version which can be used to disable/enable SIP. The instructions are given here.

Note: Since you have Debian Linux already installed, you may be able to execute gdisk from this operating system. Since I do not have this operating system installed, I am not going to pursue this further. You can obtain more information from this site. Also, gdisk may be available by booting from an external Emergency Disk. If available under Linux or from an Emergency Disk, you will not have to disable SIP.

Once gdisk is installed and SIP is disabled, you will need to make three changes. These changes involve modifying both the GUID Partition Table (GPT) and the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table. The changes are listed below.

Change the type GUID for partition 3 in the GPT from 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC to 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC. Note: gdisk uses a value of AB00 to represent the value 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC.
Make sure the attribute for partition 3 is 0002000000000000. In the example below, I assume the current value for the attribute is 0000000000000000. If not, make the appropriate corrections.
Change the id for partition 3 in the MBR table from AF to AB.

In the example below, I create and mounted a sparse image as /dev/disk1. I then used this image as input to the gdisk command. This was done to simulate the conditions on your computer. You will be making changes to your /dev/disk0.

Steelhead:~ davidanderson$ sudo gdisk /dev/disk1
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
  MBR: hybrid
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): t
Partition number (1-5): 3
Current type is 'Apple HFS/HFS+'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = AF00): ab00
Changed type of partition to 'Recovery HD'

Command (? for help): x

Expert command (? for help): a
Partition number (1-5): 3
Known attributes are:
0: system partition
1: hide from EFI
2: legacy BIOS bootable
60: read-only
62: hidden
63: do not automount

Attribute value is 0000000000000000. Set fields are:
  No fields set

Toggle which attribute field (0-63, 64 or <Enter> to exit): 49
Have enabled the 'Undefined bit #49' attribute.
Attribute value is 0002000000000000. Set fields are:
49 (Undefined bit #49)

Toggle which attribute field (0-63, 64 or <Enter> to exit): 

Expert command (? for help): r

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h

WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.

Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 2 3 4
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y

Creating entry for GPT partition #2 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AF): af
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y

Creating entry for GPT partition #3 (MBR partition #3)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AB): ab
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n

Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #4)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 83): 83
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk1.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.
Steelhead:~ davidanderson$

At this point, I would restart your Mac.

Best Answer

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