Mouse not working during fresh install of High Sierra

[Danny in Eugene]

Mid-2011 21.5 inch iMac High Sierra 16GB RAM - Apple Magic Mouse, Apple USB numbered keyboard

I followed the instructions from this website: Mac World | How to clean install macOS Big Sur, Catalina or older
I created the boot disk on an external 32GB USB drive per the instructions. I rebooted, holding the OPT key which booted to a screen where I see my internal HD and "EFI Boot", or the option to connect to WiFi. The mouse will not move at all. It's on, with fresh batteries, the green light on the bottom is on and flashing activity. However, I can move around using the keyboard arrows, TAB key, and SPACE BAR to "enter"

So I try to proceed with just the keyboard. I select the "EFI Boot" , it shows the Apple and progress bar like it's booting up. After a LONG boot up, then a second boot. The next screen is alternating photos of a mouse and keyboard showing me to "turn them on". I turn on the mouse and I get a spinning wheel, but the cursor is in the top left corner and won't move. I try moving the mouse around, clicking, gesturing, nothing. At this point, if I hit the space bar the next screen will come up.The mouse will simply not connect.

So I tap the SPACE BAR and goes to the language screen. I can use the keyboard to move around, hit return to select language, now at the macOS Utilities screen. I can select "Install macOS", TAB to the "Continue " button, hit SPACE BAR to execute and now I'm on the macOS High Sierra screen.

I can select and execute "Continue", I then "AGREE" to terms, and hit AGREE again, then I'm at "SELECT DISK" where you want to install macOS.

This is the end of the road. The keyboard no longer responds, I can't move, tab, or arrow anywhere. I can't install the OS. The HD has been erased. I'm stuck at the final steps.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

I had a similar situation when putting windows 10 on my imac, the wireless mouse would not work. i used a wired mouse to complete the installation, and the wireless mouse worked fine after booting into the windows OS.
I keep a wired mouse and keyboard handy for situations such as this.
.

 

[Peter Aretin]

I have started to suspect my wireless mouse/keyboard in causing unexpected restarts and freezes. After cloning my boot drive to an external recently, things hung at the setup screen for wireless keyboard/mouse, spinning cursor, computer could not see my devices, even though it was a clone of my boot drive. Couldn't dismiss the window and the wired USB keyboard and a wired USB mouse became inoperative. The only way I could get out of it was to power off the computer and start up again. This unmounted the external and the computer booted into the internal drive. I haven't tried booting into this external again to see if the problem persists. This does not always happen when booting into external clones. I wish I could offer some helpful advice, beyond confirming these convenient wireless peripherals can be buggy.

 

[WindowsinMacuser]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7024975

I also had the same question. The following steps should help anyone to navigate around when not using a key board.

Turn "VoiceOver" on by pressing: cmd + F5 (laptops might need to use "cmd + fn + F5"

Move around on a pane you are interacting with by using the following: Control-Option-Arrows (up/down/left/right)
Example: control + option + "up arrow" -- You will move your selection to the next selection above...

To select a sub-category (e.g. in a grid or table) use: Control-Option-Shift-Down Arrow

To exit a sub-category use: Control-Option-Shift-Up Arrow

The best way is to play around with these commands. I, myself, am still figuring them out but there may be someone else looking for a response to your question as well. I hope my response helped.

 

[Peternap]

For me also the wired mouse won’t work. Gets stuck at the same exact place

 

[ConradUK]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7024975

I also had the same question. The following steps should help anyone to navigate around when not using a key board.

Turn "VoiceOver" on by pressing: cmd + F5 (laptops might need to use "cmd + fn + F5"

Move around on a pane you are interacting with by using the following: Control-Option-Arrows (up/down/left/right)
Example: control + option + "up arrow" -- You will move your selection to the next selection above...

To select a sub-category (e.g. in a grid or table) use: Control-Option-Shift-Down Arrow

To exit a sub-category use: Control-Option-Shift-Up Arrow

The best way is to play around with these commands. I, myself, am still figuring them out but there may be someone else looking for a response to your question as well. I hope my response helped.

Thanks for this info, really saved me a lot of frustration. Thought I was looking at a very expensive doorstop.