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Hi,
I did a factory reset on my Macbook Air 11” (mid 2010 ) but in “Mac OS Utilities” where it says “Reinstall Mac OS X “ it doesn’t have High Sierra any more, it’s OS Lion.
and it doesn’t want to download anymore.
Lion doesn't see a valid destination because High Sierra re-formatted the SSD with the new APFS file system which Lion does not recognize. If you want to install Lion to this system, then you will first need to launch Disk Utility and erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Jouranled). After quitting Disk Utility, select the "Reinstall macOS Lion" option. Doing this will cause you to lose access to all data on the SSD so make sure you have a backup first.
If you want to reinstall High Sierra instead see if you can boot into Internet Recovery Mode using either Command + R or Command + Option + R. Make sure to run Disk Utility First Aid to make sure the APFS volume is Ok. If the APFS volume is Ok, then you can reinstall macOS over top of itself to retain your user accounts and data. If, however, Disk Utility is unable to repair the APFS volume, then you need to erase the whole physical drive. To see the physical drive in Disk Utility you will need to click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility.
You can also download and create a bootable macOS USB installer:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
You should make sure to have a backup before doing anything. In fact you should always have good verified working backups when using an SSD since recovering accidentally deleted files is nearly impossible and SSDs can fail at anytime without any warning signs.
Lion doesn't see a valid destination because High Sierra re-formatted the SSD with the new APFS file system which Lion does not recognize. If you want to install Lion to this system, then you will first need to launch Disk Utility and erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Jouranled). After quitting Disk Utility, select the "Reinstall macOS Lion" option. Doing this will cause you to lose access to all data on the SSD so make sure you have a backup first.
If you want to reinstall High Sierra instead see if you can boot into Internet Recovery Mode using either Command + R or Command + Option + R. Make sure to run Disk Utility First Aid to make sure the APFS volume is Ok. If the APFS volume is Ok, then you can reinstall macOS over top of itself to retain your user accounts and data. If, however, Disk Utility is unable to repair the APFS volume, then you need to erase the whole physical drive. To see the physical drive in Disk Utility you will need to click on "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility.
You can also download and create a bootable macOS USB installer:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
You should make sure to have a backup before doing anything. In fact you should always have good verified working backups when using an SSD since recovering accidentally deleted files is nearly impossible and SSDs can fail at anytime without any warning signs.
Thank you ! The second paragraph worked perfectly 🙏
Macbook Air 11” (mid 2010) factory reset not working
