Macbook Pro 13 OS issues

So, my lady decided she was going to be a total genius and insisted on a "clean start" for her laptop, which basically meant reinstalling the whole OS, but clearly, things didn't go according to plan.

Now here’s the mess: the old system is gone, but the new one absolutely refuses to install. I’ve been scouring Craigslist and Google like a madman, but it’s useless—every single time I try to run the installer, it just spits out an error, and when you hit OK, the thing restarts and loops me right back to square one.
I’ve tried everything under the sun, including holding down Cmd and R to try and get online to pull a fix, but I just kept getting hit with error -501 0F, then I tried... (ugh, I honestly can't even remember half the ridiculous stuff I attempted at this point, but let's just say I tried a dozen different things ten times over and still came up empty)

The only logical move left is to grab the OS and boot from a USB drive, but I am completely stuck because I can't find a single download button for OS X Lion on the official site. All I can find are these sketchy third-party sites trying to charge money for it, but as far as I know, Apple provides the software to its customers for free, right? 🤔 🤷

If anyone actually knows how to fix this disaster, I would be incredibly grateful.

By the way, I just tried to manually trigger the "options" menu like everyone on the forums keeps telling me to do, and now the whole thing is just bricked because it says some massive error occurred during startup, so it won't even boot anymore, and all I'm left with is this stupid little button at the bottom asking me to reset the laptop.

Anyone there? 😢

Not much of an Apple fanboy here... 🤷 there might be a few around, but it looks like they're all on vacation 😬

I'm not entirely sure where you'll track down a Lion installer, but you should be able to grab El Capitan directly from the App Store—though, of course, you'll need an actual Apple machine or perhaps a Hackintosh to make that happen. Once you've managed to download it, you just move the files onto a USB stick. I think there are plenty of guides on Google that walk you through the exact steps for creating a bootable drive; I actually went through the whole process myself a few months back, though I must admit I've somewhat forgotten the specific technicalities of it all.

Do you happen to know which year your Macbook Pro was released? My thinking is that almost any Macbook Pro from 2009 onwards ought to be compatible with El Capitan..

So, like, what if you just pulled the hard drive out and formatted it using a different machine?

Yo, you still got that disc that came with your rig?

Man, I actually still have that Snow Leopard DVD lying around—it came right in the box with my laptop.
That late 2009 unibody model? Honestly, it’s still such a beast.

So, what kind of laptop is she rocking?

Honestly, you're better off just hitting up Apple support directly.

mistyseal11 said:So, what if you just pulled the hard drive out and formatted it using another machine?

Do you actually still have that disc that came with your computer?

I actually still have that Snow Leopard DVD lying around somewhere—it came right in the box with my old laptop.
I'm still rocking that old unibody model from late 2009, and honestly, even though it’s ancient, it just keeps on going!

So, what kind of laptop is the lady running?

I don't even know where to start with this absolute mess of a situation!
I can't believe I'm actually sitting here staring at this absolute disaster of a thumbnail because it’s just so incredibly infuriating how much effort goes into making something look this intentionally terrible! Honestly, it’s kind of pathetic how some people think this level of low-effort chaos is going to fly in this day and age, though I suppose if you're looking to trigger an immediate headache, it's doing a pretty spectacular job of that.
I think that was back in 2012.

The real headache here is that I don't have a second mac lying around to get this done without any hassle, and honestly, I can't even find my disc anywhere.

cosmicheron48 said:I honestly have no clue where you're going to track down a Lion installer these days, but you can grab El Capitan right from the App Store—though you’ll obviously need a Mac or a Hackintosh to pull that off. Once you actually get the download finished, all you have to do is dump it onto a USB stick. You can find a ton of tutorials on Google explaining exactly how to turn it into a bootable drive; I actually went through the whole headache of doing it myself just a few months ago, but my brain is basically mush now and I've completely forgotten the exact steps.

What year are we even talking about for this macbook Pro? Honestly, I feel like pretty much any macbook Pro from 2009 onwards should be able to handle El Capitan without breaking a sweat.

That’s exactly what I was getting at—I just need a second mac, because honestly, I couldn't care less which OS is running on it, and since it's a 2012 model, it'll do the job just fine.

ironcyclist58 said:Honestly, you're better off just reaching out to Apple support directly.

Does America even have actual Apple support?

Peter Thompson4 said:Does Apple even have support here in the States?

Yeah they do.
https://getsupport.apple.com/GetSASO?locale=en_US

ironcyclist58 said:Yeah.
https://getsupport.apple.com/GetSASO?locale=en_US

Alright, thanks. I honestly thought Apple didn't have an official presence here in the States and just operated through third-party resellers or something.