Am trying to reinstall Monterey on an external SSD boot drive. I downloaded the latest from the App Store. Cannot reinstall because it says Monterey cannot be downgraded.
I suspect I have installed all updates to Monterey. And the downloadable Monterey is not up to date?
What can I do?
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 12.6
I gave up. I reformatted, reinstalled the MacOS and recovered from TimeMachine.
BTW, make a USB boot stick and do it now. For whatever reason, I could not install the Mac OS via MacOS Recovery after formatting the drive. It would get to the end and say 'An Error Has Occurred'.
I gave up. I reformatted, reinstalled the MacOS and recovered from TimeMachine.
BTW, make a USB boot stick and do it now. For whatever reason, I could not install the Mac OS via MacOS Recovery after formatting the drive. It would get to the end and say 'An Error Has Occurred'.
All you're trying to do is install Monterey on an external and you're being told you can downgrade? That makes no sense.
Was the SSD used on some other Mac? If so did you erase it first?
I think you need be using the latest version of Monterey regardless. ... on both would be better still.
Used on this same Mac.
I can’t reinstall Monterey from a USB installer drive I created nor when booting off the internal drive with Monterey that I just downloaded from Apple.
When trying from MacOS recovery, that drive is grayed out. When I click on it, I get the message ‘The operation couldn't be completed. (com.apple.BuildInfo.preflight.error error 21.)’
When I try reinstalling from the app after booting from the internal drive, I get the ‘cannot be downgraded’ message.
When I try using Migration Assistant when booting from the internal drive, I get a message that the external drive is a newer OS (I forget the exact wording).
I have just loaded Monterey on the internal drive and done all Monterey updates.
I was going to suggest next step to boot from a bootable flash drive and install whatever OS you want. Of course you have to stick with what's allowed for the year and model but that generally gives anew start to everything.
Thanks.
I wanted to re-install the MacOS on that external SSD and even with the bootable flash drive, it would not install.
It was also tricky for me to make the flash drive bootable for Monterrey while booted on Ventura, which was the only drive I had available with a MacOS on it.
I don't like to rely on TimeMachine to restore everything. Wiping my main hard drive, the external SSD, relying on TimeMachine to save everything left me uncomfortable. So I tried it first on the internal fusion drive. It worked fine and everything restored. With that test passed, trying it on the external SSD also went smoothly.
Reinstall Monterey - Can't Do It - Says Cannot Be Downgraded
