Hi all,

I just want to share something....

Lately my girl was having problems with her MacbookPro Snow Leopard.

Booting was taking ages. Upto it wasnt booting at all or freezing in the middle.
Also the screen was getting corrupted.

So I tried al kinds of things to fix it and couldnt work it out.
This week it wasnt doing anything anymore.
So the first opportunity I got when it did boot, I made an backup of her data to be sure.
Next I opened up the Macbook (wasnt that easy, some of the screws were messed up, but I drilled them out)
Checked if the fans were spinning and if the Macbook was dusty inside, wich it turned out wasnt.
I used compressed air to clean it out anyway, but it really wasnt dirty.

So I went on and tried to update to Maverick, wich was suppoed to be a free upgrade through the appstore.
Well, nope... Apple removed it from the appstore.
So I went looking for it -in different places- I found the MacOS Mavericks appstore update and downloaded it on my PC.
Now, how do I get that monstrious file from my PC to the Mac ?
I tried burning it to a DVD. No luck. Its 5 Gb big. And I did not have Dual layer discs.
Ok, I called some local computer stores, most of them didnt have them in stock. One did, but I had to buy 15 of them....
Now I tried to copy the file to my NAS and tried to get it to my Mac via the network. No luck. Network on the Mac didnt work anymore (internet did though...)
Ok, 32 Gb USB stick then... No. FAT 32 cant hold 5 Gig files.
So I formatted the USB stick to Exfat (or whatever) And copied the DMG file to it.
Yes the mac could read it, so I had to copy the update file from inside the dmg file to the USB stick.
And YES, I could finally begin installing Mavericks.

But noooooooooooooo...... After 45 minutes (hell, Windows installs faster) the install failed. It said that the HD is damaged and I had to clear the drive first to install the update.

But how do Install the f#cking OS when the drive has to be fomatted ??

I'm getting a bit fed up with this......

To be continued....

_________________
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When its time to meet the maker
Theres a time to live but isnt it strange
That as soon as you're born you're dying

@Metalheart

Sounds like you need to use the Axe on it.

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@Metalheart

iirc (it's been a while) if you have no working os you need to extract the dmg to a bootable dvd then when you turn on the mac hold down the C key to boot from the disc.

Might be better just to install the old version on the dvd that came with it and then worry about updating if you really want to slow it down again.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Yeah !

_________________
Theres a time to live and a time to die
When its time to meet the maker
Theres a time to live but isnt it strange
That as soon as you're born you're dying

@Severin

Theres no OS that came with it..... for some reason....

I trying to dl a bootable Lion to DVD and boot the mac from that, format the HD and install Lion.
Then Install the Maverick update.

If that fails due to the bad HD I have to get a new HD. They are standard HD's in Macbooks, right ? And repeat the above

_________________
Theres a time to live and a time to die
When its time to meet the maker
Theres a time to live but isnt it strange
That as soon as you're born you're dying

@Metalheart

It has been recommended earlier to use the axe :')

@Metalheart

Sorry Metalheart but it looks like you try too hard to make it _not_ work. Installing Mac OSX on a genuine mac is one of the easiest tasks someone can perform in the computer world. Especially if you have been a mac user AND have a 2nd mac around there is no excuse

1) check if your hardware is ok. Maybe your HD is dying ?
2) find your mac model and check what's the latest OSX you can install. If you can install 10.10 (Yosemite) opt for that instead of 10.9 (Mavericks).
3) download Yosemite or Mavericks in your working mac through mac app store (it's free)
4) Create a bootable installer for OS X Mavericks or Yosemite
5) insert the stick to your friend's computer, (re)boot keeping holding alt/option key and boot from the external USB stick
6) once the installer boots you can run Disk Utility or even Terminal from the menu before starting the installation process and format, repartition, etc

Of course, there are many other ways to solve your problem, all of them work perfectly.

Last edited by toRus on 27-Feb-2015 at 01:48 AM.
Last edited by toRus on 26-Feb-2015 at 10:06 PM.

@toRus

Thanks, very helpfull !
I'll try that.

But I heard that installing newer MacOSes can have the side effect of not being able to run the office and adobe programs you already have due to incompatibility. And the Mac might get slower cause of higher demands of the os.

Is this true ?

_________________
Theres a time to live and a time to die
When its time to meet the maker
Theres a time to live but isnt it strange
That as soon as you're born you're dying

@Metalheart

Without having hard facts I would say it would be about hte same regarding performance, with the exception of Snow Leopard (10.6.8) which is Apple's Windows XP Make sure you Reduce transparency in Accessibility/Display system preferences, otherwise Yosemite should be as fast or even faster than Mavericks (as Mountain Lion was compared to Lion).

MS Office doesn't have a problem and I don't see why Adobe would have, unless it's a really old version. Some programs that don't run with newer versions than Snow Leopard just require the legacy Java 1.6 that you can install from Apple instead of the better/more current Java 1.8 from Oracle. You can have both versions installed at the same time if you wish.

@Metalheart

I would agree will installing the latest Mac OS does slow down the system, I have a 4 year? Old iMac that has worked great, but the latest OS seems to really slow it down. I have only noticed software wise tha Final Cut Pro (Apple software) does indeed not work unless you have the most recent OS, I know this from experience of having similar work/home machine)

Not sure about office but can say the recent office version works fine, but we have moved to google docs/excel these days.

You could speed up this if you can upgrade the hard drive to a solid state one (SSD), and extra memory, works wonders.

@invent

Yes, an SSD and 4GB RAM should do it. Of course, the more the merrier.

@Metalheart

I have a 17" MacBook, last of the PPC series, AFAIK that has gone belly up. More's the pity. Good for MorphOS. The HD went catastrophic and I had to replace it. But needed to back it up first. I tried with some backup program in OSX that I gave up on as it looked like Apple chucked it there and left it to rust. I then tried Disk Utilty and once I got past the confusing interface thought I was on the way. Yes I find the Disk Utilty backup process confusing, you have to figure it out amd drag things into boxes, so it's kind of like that terrible Picasso96 program, just a tad better. Disk Utilty said the HD failed and needed to be backed up. But when I tried it stopped at the first error. Useless advice! Finally, I discovered Time Machine. I set it up with an external HD and let it go. It must have taken almost a whole night and a few backups were stored but in the end it got it all!

But this is where the fun ends. I followed a guide on iFixIt.com to pull it apart and replace the HD. Had some trouble but eventually got the lid off. Found evidence of overheating on power connector with some melted plastic. Key lock was broken. And modem was unplugged. Fixed up modem. even if it wasn't used and replaced HD. All seemed fine so screw it back together. Turn on and HDD is recognised. Go to run Disk Utilty and set it up only to be met with a total system freeze. I'm sorry was I using Mac OSX on an AmigaOne?

Open it all up and check. All seems fine. Disconnect modem in case. Back together. Nope. No good. Did PRAM reset, SMC reset, what ever you can think of reset. No change. Freezes in a few minutes. Won't power up afterwards. Will turn on after ten minutes rest.

Tested without HD. Loaded an Ubuntu live DVD. OS seemed okay, it was there for an hour. And then it froze.

I got a 15" replacement that can also run MorphOS so lost interest. But I did notice that it is quiet, the 17". I can't even hear a CPU fan. I suspect the fans may have disconected but I don't recall accidently bumping anything off. Only removed audio to get IDE cable.

Anyway I managed to restore the backup to the 15". I booted the OSX disc I had. Ran Disk Utilty and used it to restore the Time Machine backup. It formatted the drive first which was good as I didn't need to preinstall the OS. But it only installed a base version so had to update it again despite the OSX on the backup being updated already. That annoyance as well as settings as it lost on purpose. But in the end it worked well enough. Good luck for the next step!