Fresh installation on a new drive impossible because of Apple ID !??

BDAqua wrote:

BaseSystem.dmg is in Firmware, it used to run Restore Mode.

FYI, BaseSystem.dmg is also a part of (or used with the creation of) the macOS USB installer that can be found within the "Install macOS xxxxx" app. With some versions of macOS if you transfer the contents of the BaseSystem.dmg (aka "restore" the DMG to a USB stick) it will make the USB stick bootable so that you boot locally to the installer "utilities" screen which will then reach out to Apple's servers to download & install macOS. I did this with macOS 10.13 High Sierra once, but I don't think that trick works with older macOS installers.

Fr-user wrote:

Anyway I found an amazing website to upgrade my 2009 macbook to Catalina and it works finally well.

Happy to get rid of this problem and to offer a 2nd life to this mac for my 12 years old daughter. The mac is older than her. :o)

El Capitan is the end of the line for any Mac notebook released in Early or Mid 2009. High Sierra is the end of the line for any Mac notebook released in Late 2009.

You need to boot into Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R which should not require authenticating with an AppleID to confirm a previous purchase of the OS. If your Mac is a Late-2009+ model which had macOS 10.12.4+ installed in the past, then this key combination will instead boot into Internet Recovery Mode to access the online macOS installer for the highest version of macOS that is compatible with that Mac.

Make sure you follow the instructions in the following Apple article for creating a bootable macOS USB installer:

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Also make sure you read all the instructions very carefully regarding how to download the macOS 10.11 El Capitan installer since you must extract the real full installer from the .pkg file found on the mounted DMG file before the real installer gets placed into the Applications folder.

Unfortunately the quality of USB sticks is very poor so you may need to try using a different USB stick. Plus Macs can be picky about the drives used for booting.

Another possibility to the problems could be due to the new SSD not being compatible with your Mac. Not all SSDs are compatible with all computers. The older model computers can have trouble using later model SSDs because those SSDs may not always be fully backwards compatible. What is the exact make & model of your new SSD?

Another option would be to use an OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD to get macOS installed, then transferring the El Capitan installer DMG to the laptop so you can extract & install El Capitan. If this laptop originally shipped with a gray OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Restoration DVD, then you will need to use that DVD instead of the retail Upgrade DVD.

Fr-user wrote:

Hi,

I downloaded the last version. Mounted the DMG, Displayed the packet, extract the installESD, mounted it, copied the BaseSystem.DMG on my USB key

Copying the DMG to a USB stick won't make USB stick bootable. While "Restoring" the BaseSystem.dmg to a USB stick can sometimes make the system bootable from that USB stick, I'm not sure this works with the macOS 10.11 installer although it will work with macOS 10.13+. Even then, it will still need to pull everything down from Apple's servers.

I will follow your steps.

My steps to create a bootable macOS USB installer are listed in the Apple article I linked in my previous post. I never mentioned using the "BaseSystem.dmg" file in any manner.

I am having same issue. Trying to install Yosemite in an old Mac. It’s asking for Apple ID password, then 403 error. Tried using bootable flash drive, still not installing after restarting. Going to same reinstall option then Apple ID.

BaseSystem.dmg is in Firmware, it used to run Restore Mode.

Thank you!:)