How I Accidentally Bricked and Then Resurrected My Old MacBook Pro — Thanks to Rosetta! – The DevOps Diary

🔧 The Start: “It’s just a format, what could go wrong?”

I had an old 2016 MacBook Pro (Intel) lying around, and I decided to gift it to my cousin.
Company security policy required a full wipe to make sure no data could ever be recovered — simple enough, right?

So I opened Disk Utility from recovery mode and erased everything, including macOS itself.

# from macOS Recovery terminal
diskutil eraseDisk APFS "Macintosh HD" /dev/disk0

I thought I’d just reinstall macOS later through Internet Recovery (⌘ + ⌥ + R).
But that’s when the adventure began…

🧩 Step 1: The Internet Recovery Loop

Internet Recovery booted into macOS Sierra, but every installation attempt failed halfway through.

Error:

“An error occurred while preparing the installation.”

After some research, I discovered the cause:

💡 Apple’s older macOS versions (like Sierra or High Sierra) use expired certificates, so they can’t authenticate with Apple’s servers anymore.

Essentially, Apple says:

“Sorry, this OS is too old for 2025.” 😅

💽 Step 2: Creating a Bootable Installer from My New Mac

No problem, I thought — I’ll just create a USB installer from my new MacBook Pro (M3 chip).

I downloaded macOS installers using gibMacOS and used the official createinstallmedia command:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyUSB

But every installer I created — whether Catalina, Big Sur, or Monterey — failed when booting on the 2016 Intel Mac.
Sometimes it wouldn’t even load; other times, it threw cryptic errors mid-installation.

I double-checked the USB, re-formatted, recreated… and still nothing.
The universe was clearly laughing at me.

🐧 Step 3: Enter Ubuntu (and the Wi-Fi Nightmare)

At this point, I gave up on macOS and decided to install Ubuntu 24 instead.

The installation was smooth and quick, but once I booted in — surprise!
No Wi-Fi.

When I tried connecting, Ubuntu threw this delightful message:

“Passwords or encryption keys are required to access the wireless network.”

I verified the password, double-checked the router (WPA2 Personal), but no luck.
Then I noticed… even Ethernet through my Baseus USB-C hub wasn’t working!

lspci | grep -i network
# Output:
# Broadcom Inc. BCM43602 802.11ac Wireless LAN SoC [14e4:43ba]

Yup — Broadcom Wi-Fi.
The bane of every Linux user’s existence. 😩

🧠 Step 4: The Real Culprit

After hours of reading obscure forum posts, I found the issue:

Ubuntu doesn’t include the proprietary Broadcom firmware (brcmfmac43602-pcie.*) by default.

Without it, the Wi-Fi card just blinks sadly, waiting for firmware that never comes.

So I manually copied firmware files from another system using a USB drive:

sudo mkdir -p /lib/firmware/brcm/
sudo cp brcmfmac43602-pcie.* /lib/firmware/brcm/
sudo modprobe -r brcmfmac
sudo modprobe brcmfmac

Finally, I got Ethernet working through the hub — victory!
…but only for a few minutes.

After I ran:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo reboot

🎭 New Problem: Keyboard and trackpad stopped working completely.
Ubuntu 25 beta? Same result.
It was like every fix I tried unlocked a new level of chaos.

🤯 Step 5: The “Wait… what am I doing?” Moment

At this point, I took a break and thought deeply (and desperately).

That’s when I realized something obvious:

My new MacBook (M3) is ARM-based, while the old 2016 MacBook is Intel-based.

All the macOS installers I had been creating were ARM builds, incompatible with Intel hardware!

So of course they were failing — they couldn’t even boot properly on x86 architecture.
🤦‍♂️ Rookie mistake, meet Rosetta.

🪄 Step 6: The Rosetta Discovery

Apple provides Rosetta 2, a compatibility layer that allows Apple Silicon Macs to emulate Intel binaries.

By enabling Rosetta mode for Terminal, you can make Intel-based tools (like macOS installer creation scripts) run correctly.

Here’s how I fixed it:

Open Finder → Applications → Utilities
Right-click Terminal.app → Get Info
Check ✅ “Open using Rosetta”

Then recreate the installer:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyUSB

This time, it completed smoothly!
Booted on my old Mac, installed Monterey flawlessly, and everything worked — Wi-Fi, trackpad, keyboard, the lot.

🎉 Final Victory

After days of trial and error, I learned more about Apple hardware, EFI quirks, Linux driver chaos, and architecture compatibility than I ever intended.

My 2016 MacBook Pro is now running macOS Monterey beautifully — and my cousin is thrilled.
(He’ll never know the war I fought to get there. 😅)

💡 Lessons Learned

Problem	Root Cause	Solution
Internet Recovery failed	Expired Apple certificates for old macOS builds	Use newer macOS or create offline USB installer
macOS USB installer wouldn’t boot	Created on ARM (Apple Silicon) system	Enable Rosetta and rebuild
Ubuntu Wi-Fi password error	Missing Broadcom firmware	Install `brcmfmac43602-pcie.*` files manually
Ethernet not working	Missing Realtek driver	Install driver via `.deb` and reboot
Keyboard & mouse stopped after update	Kernel update broke HID drivers	Use older kernel or reinstall
Everything works finally	Using Rosetta + correct architecture image	Success 🎉

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