Trying to reinstall OS for iMac7.1

[pixelgirl737]

Recently bought a used Mac for my son to play around with. It's an iMac 7.1 and the previous owner wiped the HD. Now we can't get anything to work and I need a starting point. I see from documentation that it will work with El Capitan. Do you know if it will work with any other OS? I'm downloading El Capitan now and can put it on a gig stick, but not sure how to force it to try to boot up from that method. Can anyone help me figure it out?

While this is really good experience for me and my son as he's trying to learn Mac architecture, it's past the point of interest and we're just groaning and ready to get it working now.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

That model is an iMac (20-inch Mid 2007) or iMac (24-inch Mid 2007). It will indeed support Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan.

-Which size screen is it?
-How much RAM?
-What size is the HD?
-Where are you downloading the El Capitan installer from, the Apple App Store on another Mac?

You will need to create an startup disk that can then install El Capitan onto the iMac. Either use an external drive you already have with OS X installed, or something like DiskMaker X. You would probably need the DiskMaker X 6 Release Candidate 5 version.

Hope that helps and good luck!

C

 

[pixelgirl737]

20-inch, not sure on RAM, 4GB HD, downloaded from the Internet because I couldn't find a link to DL from app store. I have a later model iMac, but this is a little beyond the scope of my experience. Lol. Downloaded DiskMaker X6 rc5, went through the process, set it to my external drive but it says DMG may be incomplete. Delete the install application, then download it again from the App Store. Found everything, got through the entire process again, but still getting OS X Install app or DMG may be incomplete. Delete your install application, then download it again. Did that twice. No joy so far.