Unable to install OSX

[Spanish Dave]

Hi everyone .. new to this forum and hope someone can help me with this. I have recently bought a mid 2009 iMac 27 inch. It has had a new harddrive fitted and now I can't seem to get any OS installed on it. I have formatted the disk in the mac and tried installing with usb stick with a dmg install file for lion ... wouldn't have it .. then I tried with an iso on a DVD I wrote (using Transmac) and it started installing, then stopped with a message to reinstall OSX, now every time I try to boot it it comes up with the same problem .. also with an iso of snow leopard it's the same. I've tried with a double layer DVD, but it just splits them out.
I'm OK with PCs as I had a computer shop for a few years ... but this has me tearing my hair out.
TIA

 

[MacsBug]

Hi Dave, and welcome to the forum.

Its very possible that the reason that the USB stick is not installing is due to the certificates in the installer have expired. You can change the date in your system before you run the installer to a timeframe before the certificate expired.

To do this follow these steps.

When you are at OS X Utilities screen, before you select Install OS X go to the Utilities menu on top and select Terminal. Once the terminal launches type in date 0601010011

This will set the date to Dec 1st, 2018 which should be prior to the date that the Install certificate expires.

After you get confirmation of the date, quit the terminal, and then Install OS X.

Once the Mac reboots into the OS, and you have an internet connection the date should automatically switch back to the current date and time.


This date is based on Snow Leopard. If you have a differenet version of Mac OS X installer you would need to ajust the date based on the release date.