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I bought a second hand MacBook, that had not had a fresh install of OS X. The original owner's username and password are in the system. I do not know the administrator password. I can use the Mac normally by signing in/out without asking for authentication. However when I tried to install some programs, the system asked for authentication, so I decided to reinstall the system.

I downloaded a Mavreicks OS 10.10 from the Internet, then I made a bootable OS X on a USB thumb drive using Transmac software. I logged to my Mac in the Recovery mode booted from the USB. I then erased the main HDD partition and tried to reinstall the OS, but an error msg poped-up saying:

Can't download the additional components needed to install OS X.

How can I now do a fresh install of OS X?

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    Where did you get Mavericks from? Is there space left on the stick? Did you verify the content of the stick before using it? Did you boot from USB or from Recovery Mode (two rather different things)? When erasing the HD, did you erase just the main partition or everything (including the recovery partition)?
    – nohillside ♦
    Oct 30, 2015 at 14:11
  • @patrix I got it from this link getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/… yes there is an empty space left, I booted from usb "I think", I just erased the main partition.
    – Mohammad
    Oct 30, 2015 at 14:15
  • Boot from the usb, don't boot from recovery. Hold option (alt) key and boot from the "Install OS X ..." disk.
    – mspasov
    Oct 30, 2015 at 14:54

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Some OS software from another internet source other than Apple is not entirely reliable unless they are a certified Apple seller. In order to get back to the OS you want you can do a few things. Delete the HDD from disk utility and recover it from Internet Recovery. This should bring you to download El Capitan, after that you want to go to the app store and see if you have a version of Mavericks already downloaded, if you go great. If not, you are going to need to buy a copy and then download that onto your USB to reboot from there. Chances are, the copy of Mavericks you have is corrupt in some way or missing essential components.

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Apple's createinstallmedia tool will avoid the "download additional components" failure in almost all cases.

See How do I make a bootable USB flash drive a Mac? for a step by step guide and discussion on how to accomplish that.

The next real question is if your hardware supports Internet Recovery or if your recovery HD is still operational. Disconnect all external devices and see if you can get a "reinstall OS X" option. You might need to download and install the latest OS onto an external drive and then re-download your older installer if you don't get the option to reinstall 10.10 or lower.

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  • I don't have an active os x
    – Mohammad
    Oct 30, 2015 at 15:40
  • @user2101939 That's where Internet recovery might help. If not, you can take a USB drive to a Mac and make an installer there to bring back to your broken Mac.
    – bmike ♦
    Oct 30, 2015 at 16:45

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