As of 2024, Mac Internet Recovery versions from 10.7-10.13 are online, but BROKEN. In this article we will focus on the original Internet Recovery version, OS X 10.7 Lion!
In my current quest to fix every single macOS Recovery version from 10.7 to 10.13, the most popular version requested was actually OS X Lion!
OS X Lion was actually the very first version of Internet Recovery. So it is now the oldest version still online. The fact at Apple is still maintaining Lion’s Internet Recovery server is great, but it is now completely broken.
Keep in mind, this is NOT the Date and Time issue that most articles point to. That fix worked in the past but does not work anymore. So internal recovery (command R) and Internet Recovery are currently unable to download and install OS X Lion in its current state.
Previously I provided fixes and workarounds for macOS High Sierra and macOS Sierra Recovery issues.
High Sierra Recovery & Internet Recovery Fix
macOS Sierra Recovery & Internet Recovery Fix
Let’s get jump in and get Lion Recovery fixed!
Table of contents
- What is the root problem?
- How to fix the issue?
- Fix #1 Downloading OS X Lion from Apple and creating a USB installer.
- Fix #2 Downloading OS X Lion from INSIDE Lion Recovery and using it to Install Lion with it!
- Extra Option: Creating a OS X Lion USB installer drive INSIDE OS X Lion Recovery!
#1 What is the root problem?
What is the Lion Recovery error, and why is it happening? The error pops up right after you hit the install button for OS X Lion.
The error comes up almost immediately with an error message “An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again.” The error in the installer log is listed below
Install Mac OS X Lion[1978]: Eror!! Error Domain=ISErrorDomain Code=1 "The server gave an error during download: 403 Forbidden."
If we take look at the actual certificate inside InstallMacOSX.pkg, we will find multiple expired certificates. The final one expiring in 2019, Apple reissued most of the newer installers to fix this issue but did NOT re issue the older installers. We used to be able to revert the time back before 2019 or 2015 and the download would work. This is no longer the case, and this leaves us with a completely broken Lion recovery with no workarounds.
You are now completely stuck.
The worst part about this error is that you are left with out any way to recover. You just erased your disk and you don’t have USB installer.
How to fix the issue seems simple, but roadblocks are ahead…
Now that we know what the issue is, how do we fix it?
The easiest way to install OS X Lion is create and to boot from a OS X Lion USB installer. When Installing Lion from a USB installer, you do not have to worry about any App Store or certificate checks.
The only problem? The InstallMacOS.pkg used to get you the “Install OS X Lion.app” can’t be installed on newer versions of macOS!!!!
If you are running any newer version of macOS you will not be able to even create a OS X Lion USB Installer due to the installer’s OS version restrictions.
Most articles today will point to an app like balenaEtcher, a script or going through a bunch of steps on windows to create the Lion USB! What a headache..
None of that is needed, I will show you how to create a Lion USB Installer disk on a newer version of macOS AND in Lion Recovery if you would like!
Creating an OS X Lion USB Installer in 2024
The first thing we need to do is download the official InstallMacOSX.dmg from Apple.
Apple How to download older versions of macOS article:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102662
The full InstallMacOSX.dmg download URL = https://updates.cdn-apple.com/2021/macos/041-7683-20210614-E610947E-C7CE-46EB-8860-D26D71F0D3EA/InstallMacOSX.dmg
The download is 4.72GB in size. For future reference the MD5 of the dmg = 97d6d8f49b8d8faad415a8e07b89c6d5
Double click on the InstallMacOSX.dmg to mount it. NOTE: the dmg is most likely in your /Downloads folder
Inside the mounted dmg is the InstallMacOSX.pkg file. If you were on an older version of OS X you would be able to immediately get to the Install OS X Lion.app to create the USB installer. But as we mentioned above we will get the version error trying to install this pkg on any version newer than 10.9 or so.
To get around this, we will use the pkgutil binary to extract all the needed files including the most important one InstallESD.dmg
Open the Terminal.app located in /Applications/Utilities folder
Run this command to extract all the Lion files from the pkg to a folder on your desktop called Lion. NOTE: The pkgutil binary has a weird quirk where if you create the Lion folder first, the entire command will error out. So let pkgutil create the Lion folder.
pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Install\ Mac\ OS\ X/InstallMacOSX.pkg ~/Desktop/Lion
You should now have a folder on your desktop called Lion and inside you should see the following files.
We need to right click on InstallMacOSX.pkg and select “Show Package Contents”
This will allow you to see inside the InstallMacOSX.pkg so we can finally get to the InstallESD.dmg file that we need!
We can now use the InstallESD.dmg to create an OS X Lion USB Installer. We could use the Disk Utility.app to restore the dmg to our USB drive but it is a pain in the ass. The App requires a Scan Image to Restore that can take a while, plus the GUI options do not allow us to navigate into inside of a package. Instead let’s do it all with a simple asr command!
NOTE: Before you run this command, BE SURE TO BACK UP ANY FILES ON YOUR USB DRIVE. As we will be erasing the entire USB disk to create a Lion Installer drive. Also of note, the drive must be formatted in OS X Extended (Journaled) + GUID partition Scheme shown in the picture below before we run the command. The name of the USB drive must be set as Untitled
The above image shows the erase format of your erased USB drive before running the asr command below. Now that the USB drive is prepped and ready to go, we can use the Terminal.app to run this command.
sudo asr restore --source ~/Desktop/Lion/InstallMacOSX.pkg/InstallESD.dmg --target /Volumes/Untitled --erase --noverify
This is what you should see after hitting enter on the above command
Wait abut until the restore process completes. It has to transfer 4.7GB to your usb drive. NOTE: Don’t worry about the personalization error, as it is not needed.
When complete you should see this window pop up!
You have now created an OS X Lion USB Installer drive on a newer version of macOS! You can eject the drive and plug it into your older Mac that needs Lion.
Boot to the USB drive by holding down Option and then click Mac OS X Installer
You will now be in OS X Lion recovery! You can click on Disk Utility to erase the disk and then Install OS X Lion!
Fix #2 If you are stuck in OS X Lion Recovery. Download the Lion Installer directly from Apple INSIDE OS X Recovery!
This fix defiantly takes a few extra steps but does 100% get you out of your jam and it all starts with getting the OS X Lion Installer from Apple to the recovery environment. In previous recovery fixes like macOS Sierra, we used the curl binary to download the installer directly from Apple. Problem is, the curl binary is not included in OS X Lion recovery!
-bash 3.2# curl -bash: curl: command not found -bash 3.2#
Not good…. That was our main play to get files into OS X Recovery. We need to figure out a different way to get files from the internet. That got me thinking about the included Safari.app inside recovery. I’ve tried to download files before in the past. The problem is, Safari’s default download location is set to the recovery partition, which is only 800MB or so.
Click on the Menu Bar and select the Terminal.app
Most settings in Recovery are really locked down and do not let the user change them. Terminal.app does not even have a Preferences setting to change anything.
For years, I thought Safari was the same way and never checked. But now with curl not being an option to download anything, I better check to make sure.
Get the heck out of town! We can change the default Safari Save location in Recovery. The answer was so simple in hindsight, but was hidden away all this time! Now we can change the default download location to the main HD /Volumes/Macintosh HD
In the Safari Preferences option Save downloaded files to Click Other from drop down menu. When the location box comes up, select Macintosh HD
Now we can download Lion right?
NOPE!
With all the expired certificates in Lion blocking different parts of the install process, it also blocks us from getting to the Apple Support article to get to our Lion download link.
Spoiler alert: the direct download link = https://updates.cdn-apple.com/2021/macos/041-7683-20210614-E610947E-C7CE-46EB-8860-D26D71F0D3EA/InstallMacOSX.dmg
Good thing we have our good friend over at @ActionRetro! He created a web search engine that can work when you can’t navigate SSL websites anymore.
This allows us to use the internet and navigate to apple’s main support article https://support.apple.com/en-us/102662
Now you have a full list of instructions and commands on your screen!
Great! Now we can see the Lion 10.7 Download link. Right click or control click on the link and select Copy Link. NOTE: Download linked file and File As do NOT work.
You now have the link copied we can paste it to the URL bar. Paste the link in the URL bar above. Only one problem, the link still has the FrogFind link in the front and we need to remove it. This is what the link will look like below. Use the arrow key to move to the front of the link so you an remove this section http://frogfind.com/read.php?a= from the link
http://frogfind.com/read.php?a=https://updates.cdn-apple.com/2021/macos/041-7683-20210614-E610947E-C7CE-46EB-8860-D26D71F0D3EA/InstallMacOSX.dmg
When finished the link should look like this
https://updates.cdn-apple.com/2021/macos/041-7683-20210614-E610947E-C7CE-46EB-8860-D26D71F0D3EA/InstallMacOSX.dmg
Hit enter! The Lion installer should start to download!!!
NICE!!! Now let the InstallMacOSX.dmg finish downloading.
Next we have to partition the main drive to add a 2nd volume.
Because the current Lion install system is broken, we need to create a 2nd volume so we can restore the Lion Installer (InstallESD.dmg) to so we can Install Lion again. NOTE: If you have a USB flash drive and would like to create a USB installer instead, skip to the next step.
Open up disk utility:
Now click on on the top level HD in the left hand side. In this case it is called 121.33 GB APPLE SSD Now click on Partition on the right side at the top.
Now click on the + button so we can add a 2nd volume.
We now have a 2nd volume selected. Now click the 2nd drive and change the name the drive Lion. Click on Size: and type in 10 then hit the enter key.
Now click Apply and then Partition on the next window. When complete, the drive layout should look like this:
Now we are ready to go back to terminal and continue the process.
Now that the drive is partitioned, we can mount the InstallMacOSX.dmg and unpack it so we can create the Lion installer.
Quit out of disk utility and go back into the Terminal.app
Now let’s mount the dmg and extract the files. The InstallMacOSX.dmg is located in /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/InstallMacOSX.dmg
Run this command to mount the dmg.
-bash 3.2# hdiutil attach /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/InstallMacOSX.dmg
Checksumming Driver Descriptor Map (DDM : 0)…
Driver Descriptor Map (DDM : 0): verified CRC32 $6F69FC66
Checksumming (Apple_Free : 1)…
(Apple_Free : 1): verified CRC32 $00000000
Checksumming Apple (Apple_partition_map : 2)…
Apple (Apple_partition_map : 2): verified CRC32 $1050CEF9
Checksumming Macintosh (Apple_Driver_ATAPI : 3)…
Macintosh (Apple_Driver_ATAPI : 3): verified CRC32 $F1E8BA9E
Checksumming (Apple_Free : 4)…
(Apple_Free : 4): verified CRC32 $00000000
Checksumming disk image (Apple_HFS : 5)…
.....................................................................................................................................................................................................
disk image (Apple_HFS : 5): verified CRC32 $87B9DAC2
Checksumming (Apple_Free : 6)…
(Apple_Free : 6): verified CRC32 $00000000
verified CRC32 $F6DFCDB2
/dev/disk2 Apple_partition_scheme
/dev/disk2s1 Apple_partition_map
/dev/disk2s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI
/dev/disk2s3 Apple_HFS /Volumes/Install Mac OS X
-bash 3.2#
Now the dmg is mounted to this location /Volumes/Install\ Mac\ OS\ X
Now let’s use pkgutil to expand the pkg so we can get access to the InstallESD.dmg.
-bash 3.2# pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Install\ Mac\ OS\ X/InstallMacOSX.pkg /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Install
This will expand all the files from the pkg to a new directory called /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Install
Now we are ready to restore the InstallESD.dmg to the 2nd hard drive volume!
-bash 3.2# asr restore --source /Volumes/Install\ Mac\ OS\ X/InstallMacOSX.pkg/InstallESD.dmg --target /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Lion --erase --noverify
Optional: How to Create a macOS Sierra USB installer in macOS Internet Recovery.
Plug in your USB Drive and make sure to backup all data as we are going to ERASE the dive in disk utility
When erasing the USB drive, make sure you click “view” and click “Show all devices”
Make sure to use Format the USB Drive with macOS Extended Journaled and GUID Partition map. Leave Untitled as the default drive name
Go back to terminal
Even though Apple reissued the Sierra installer to fix the Certificate issue in 2019, it has another problem.
The Info.plist CFBundleShortVersionString has an incorrect entry of 12.6.06 when it needs to be 12.6.03
To fix it we can run this command to edit the new entry in.
plutil -replace CFBundleShortVersionString -string "12.6.03" /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Info.plist
Now we can create the macOS Sierra USB Installer!/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app
With a OS X Lion USB installer, you can now reboot your Mac + Hold down option and click OS X Installer and then you can properly erase and install Lion!
I hope this helped you! Good luck.
