Issues with my Mac Mini

[GB93]

Hi guys,

I recently had an issue with my Mac Mini (mid 2011 running OS X Lion). Had the flashing folder with a question mark come up. Did a bit of googling around and figured I would try do a fresh OS install. I've mounted the .dmg on a USB stick but I can't get the Mac to open the Start Up manager on boot so I can select the USB (I am holding down options/alt). Instead it always goes to Internet recovery, then comes up with 'Starting internet recovery this may take a while', then boots into Mac OS X Utilities.

I have tried with both the wireless keyboard and a wired one (albeit for windows) and no dice.

Any help on getting the start up manager to appear so I can boot from the USB would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers
G

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

-How is the USB flash drive setup?
-Where did you get a Lion DMG?
-You cannot boot to a USB flash drive that only has the OS X/macOS DMG on it. You need to create a bootable installer. You will need a working Mac, the Lion installer, and DiskMaker X 3.
-Is the wireless keyboard an Apple keyboard?
-If you don't have another working Mac, you can install OS X using the Mac OS X Utilities: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery

C

 

[GB93]

Hello and welcome.

-How is the USB flash drive setup?
-Where did you get a Lion DMG?
-You cannot boot to a USB flash drive that only has the OS X/macOS DMG on it. You need to create a bootable installer. You will need a working Mac, the Lion installer, and DiskMaker X 3.
-Is the wireless keyboard an Apple keyboard?
-If you don't have another working Mac, you can install OS X using the Mac OS X Utilities: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery

C

Hi Cory,

Thanks for the reply. I'll answer the questions in order.

-The USB is set up as a bootable drive.
-I got the Lion installer .dmg from a friend who has OS X Lion on one of his machines
-Yes I've mounted it using TransMac
- Yes the wireless keyboard is an Apple one.
- I've tried this but it didn't work as I've found out that Apple isn't supporting OS this old anymore so it can't be downloaded.

The issue isn't the memory stick/installer which is mounted as I can see it from disk utilities (both the stick itself and the installer mounted on it). The issue is that the holding options/alt button on start up isn't bringing up the boot menu so I can't tell it to boot from the USB instead of the HDD.

Cheers
G.