Install OS on empty HD?

[clyde]

Nabbed an iMac 2014 from ebay. No optical drive.

Looks great, starts, but has no OS. HD has been erased.

Connected a clone of my operating Mac, which has, in the Applications Folder, a file "Install OS X El Capitan." Selected the Clone as Startup Disk.

Got the Mac to start from the clone, then tried to Install OS X El Capitan.
After about an hour the progress bar, under the Apple logo, has made less than 1/8-inch of progress.

For the first half-hour I thought it's slow because data is transferring via the USB cable. After an hour I wonder if anything at all is happening.

What to do? Can't configure it for the internet with no OS…

[clay]

restart, hold down command, option, R keys. That gets you into internet recovery. You will download and install the factory default OS from there.

[Octave Doctor]

I'd try putting the OS on a usb stick, then boot from that.

[clyde]

OK, I have an OS on a USB stick. Will try that.

Thanks!

[3d]

Please follow-up. I'm curious.

[clyde]

It worked!

[clyde]

clay wrote:
restart, hold down command, option, R keys. That gets you into internet recovery. You will download and install the factory default OS from there.

Is the "factory default" the latest OS or the OS originally installed?

[PeterW]

It installs the latest OS your Mac will run.

[clay]

PeterW wrote:
It installs the latest OS your Mac will run.

In my experience, it installs whatever it shipped from the factory with. Internet recovery. Reinstalling using the recovery partition on your main drive will just reinstall whatever version created the recovery partition

[clyde]

When HD window is displayed, it does not show the # of items and # of GB available.

I rummaged through View Options, Preferences, but not far enough.

The only way I can find HD size and remaining space is through Get Info.

What must I set to get that info to appear at the bottom of the HD window?