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Accidentally erased MacBook Pro retina 2012

While meaning to just erase data before selling my 2012 MacBook Pro retina, I’ve successfully erased the whole thing. Idiot.

It gives me the question mark in a folder icon or I can start it up in recovery mode. But. It can only download the OS from the internet, and it wants the password to my home network, yet it won’t let me type anything into the password box.

There is nothing else available on the screen.


I have a downloaded copy of Lion, but I can’t get to mount a .dmg (to try making a bootable installer on a USB drive) because I’m having to use my MacBook Air that is running Catalina, and Lion says it wants Snow Leopard, the previous OS, which of course I don’t have. So I’m stuck.


Does anyone have any ideas??

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Mar 27, 2022 5:44 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 27, 2022 5:47 AM

Herbie1 wrote:

While meaning to just erase data before selling my 2012 MacBook Pro retina, I’ve successfully erased the whole thing. Idiot.
It gives me the question mark in a folder icon or I can start it up in recovery mode. But. It can only download the OS from the internet, and it wants the password to my home network, yet it won’t let me type anything into the password box.
There is nothing else available on the screen.

I have a downloaded copy of Lion, but I can’t get to mount a .dmg (to try making a bootable installer on a USB drive) because I’m having to use my MacBook Air that is running Catalina, and Lion says it wants Snow Leopard, the previous OS, which of course I don’t have. So I’m stuck.

Does anyone have any ideas??


See if you are presented with an installer in Internet Recovery—


How to reinstall macOS

Recovery (both M1 and Intel) — How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support


2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 27, 2022 5:47 AM in response to Herbie1

Herbie1 wrote:

While meaning to just erase data before selling my 2012 MacBook Pro retina, I’ve successfully erased the whole thing. Idiot.
It gives me the question mark in a folder icon or I can start it up in recovery mode. But. It can only download the OS from the internet, and it wants the password to my home network, yet it won’t let me type anything into the password box.
There is nothing else available on the screen.

I have a downloaded copy of Lion, but I can’t get to mount a .dmg (to try making a bootable installer on a USB drive) because I’m having to use my MacBook Air that is running Catalina, and Lion says it wants Snow Leopard, the previous OS, which of course I don’t have. So I’m stuck.

Does anyone have any ideas??


See if you are presented with an installer in Internet Recovery—


How to reinstall macOS

Recovery (both M1 and Intel) — How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support


Accidentally erased MacBook Pro retina 2012

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