2011 Mac mini gets stuck during High Sierra reinstall
A 2011 Mac mini was wiped after being taken back from family, and the fell back from to Lion. The upgrade path required downloading newer macOS s on other devices and moving step by step back toward . The machine reached , which made it possible to use the to download and start the reinstall.
The install then froze every time for two days, stopping around the middle while showing a message about calculating the remaining time. did not fix it. Changing the date back to 2018, as suggested in a forum, also did not fix it.
The RAM was removed and reseated, but later stopped opening at all. During another retry, the install finally started working, though the machine may still be unreliable to maintain.
Key points
- The 2011 Mac mini reset from back to Lion after being wiped.
- The machine was upgraded as far as before could be downloaded from the .
- The install froze for two days around the middle of the process.
- , changing the date to 2018, and reseating the RAM did not immediately solve it.
- later stopped opening, but another retry finally got the install moving.