MacOS – Mountain Lion reinstall failure

installinternet-recoverymacos

I am trying to fix a Macbook Pro from around 2012/2013, the hard drive failed so I replaced it with a Sandisk 120GB SSD and I am trying to reinstall OS X Mountain Lion using Internet recovery.

Here's what I've done: installed SSD, connected power, Ethernet, booted into Internet Recovery using Command+R, formatted the disk using Disk Utility (Mac os Extended – Journaled), started re-install.

I starts out just fine:

Reinstall started

But then it gets the bar filled, stalls there for long time and the it
pops up with the message:

Reinstall Error

The error message is in Danish and translates to something like: "Can’t download the additional components needed to install Mac OS X". Does anybody know how to get fix this installation issue?

Edit: Attempted suggestion 3) by Keith

Using a Macbook Pro with OS Sierra I got an USB Boot disk created, ran disk utility and started the install, which after about half an hour stopped the installation with the message:

enter image description here

Which translates to something along the lines of "The installer payload failed signature check".

Edit: Hardware issue and solution

Turns out that something was wrong with the SATA/IR cable connecting the drive to the logic board. Installation succeeded when installing onto the harddrive connected via USB.

I then purchased a caddy and replaced the optical drive with the SSD inside the caddy. It now runs MacOS Sierra just fine.

Best Answer

It turns out that for some Macbook Pros, it is common for the internal SATA cable to start malfunctioning over time. The errors I experienced does not give a clear indication that this is the case but if others come across this thread and experience spurious installation errors then here are three different ways of getting a Macbook Pro running again:

  1. Connect hard drive via USB/SATA, cost ~12$ and easy but cumbersome to have the drive dangling around, so mostly useful for debugging and determining that it is the internal SATA cable that is malfunctioning.

  2. Connect hard drive via optical drive caddy, cost ~12$, installation guide https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Early+2011+Dual+Hard+Drive/8529

  3. Replace the internal SATA cable, cost ~40$, installation guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Hard+Drive+Cable+Replacement/10379

Related Question