Chosen Solution
Hello asking for help in the simplest of terms. Wife tried to update her mid 2009 MacBook Pro running El Capitan to high Sierra following a YouTube video and somehow messed up something. On start up I get the slash and circle icon tried everything. Anyway I can fix this? Computer is in awesome shape and really don’t want to just throw it away. Would like to know how to get back to El Capitan or somehow get high Sierra on it
The “ghostbusters” symbol means the OS is either corrupted or incompatible (unlikely). I suggest reinstalling the OS. Create a bootable drive with only the OS you want in it (don’t use a drive you often use as this will erase the entire drive. Turn on the computer but hold down the option key until you see a screen with a hard drive and a yellow box with a USB icon or it. Select the USB, wait for it to boot, and select “Reinstall Mac OS X”. You shouldn’t lose all your data from this. You could also try internet recovery, which doesn’t require a boot drive but the computer will still be on El Capitan. This time, hold command and R on startup until you see a globe. Connect to the internet and let it continue until it boots to Mac OS utilities. Just run the same “Reinstall Mac OS X” and wait. I hope any of these work.
