Mac question update

[ffutures]

I was asked for more details - it's a 1.83 ghz Core 2 Duo with 1GB RAM

Just tried booting it off a memory stick that allegedly has OS X 10.7 and it doesn't work, but the stick is old and may be damaged. I have 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6 (Snow Leopard) on DVD-ROM - they're versions that will work on any compatible mac, not the "shipped with an individual machine" grey disks.

Would it be possible to do this sort of DVD to USB transfer on my MacBook Pro (running 10.13) without messing up the hard drive, or would I be better off doing it on the windows 7 box.

Update - 7.55 Tuesday - I tried to get a memory stick install to work and failed (probably did something wrong setting up the stick), but decided to try one of the old Mac DVD drives I have with a Firewire to IDE interface from an old external hard drive. And amazingly it worked pretty well once I found a drive that was still reading reliably - got Snow Leopard installed in about an hour, I'm now getting the updates downloaded from Apple and installing them. Hopefully I'll get the thing on sale in the next day or two.

Comments

[autopope]

I think either Snow Leopard or Lion were the last versions that would run on Core 2 Duo kit — newer OS versions require a 64-bit processor? (It's been some years ...)

Here's how to create a bootable installation media for macOS from a downloadable installer.

Meanwhile, about your machine: here's what the data sheet on everymac.com says:

"This system can run the last version of OS X 10.7 "Lion" if upgraded to at least 2 GB of RAM. It is not supported booting into 64-bit mode when running Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard." It does not support "OpenCL" either. Please also note that OS X Lion is not capable of running Mac OS X apps originally written for the PowerPC processor as it does not support the "Rosetta" environment."

It has two RAM slots, and only officially supports up to 3Gb, although some reports of dual 2Gb SIMMs permitting it to access 4Gb of RAM have been made. I've had good results with RAM upgrade kits from Other World Computing: here's their page for your machine, looks like a 4Gb kit would cost you $32.99 plus shipping and VAT (probably around £30 in total).

I used to have a bootable USB stick with Lion on it, from Apple (for a Macbook) but I'm not sure where it is — serious spelunking in the crap pile beside my desk would be required, and I'm about to go to bed. If you can't find it for yourself prod me on Wednesday. Meanwhile Apple still host a web page offering to sell a download license for a copy of OSX 10.7 Lion for $19.99 on Apple.com. And there's always bittorrent.

[ffutures]

I think the memory stick I have with 10.7 came with your Macbook when I bought it a few years ago, and it really didn't seem to want to boot from it - it gave me a big "STOP" sign rather than booting - so I'm guessing it'll have to be Snow Leopard. I really don't want to get into upgrading it anyway, I just want to wipe it and sell it on.

[autopope]

Your best bet is to make a bootable stick using Snow Leopard ... or to buy/beg/borrow a SuperDrive and just boot the DVD directly.

Turns out you can make a bootable macOS USB stick on Windows, too, if you have a Windows PC with a DVD drive and a USB port.

[ffutures]

Had a couple of goes with a USB stick and it really didn't seem to want to work, so I've put together a firewire DVD drive (old firewire hard disk casing with an old DVD Drive) and it booted OK and seems to be working so far, about ten minutes into a 30 minute install (yeah, right). Not exactly fast since the data is going through Firewire 400 ports at both ends, but hopefully I'll get there in the end.

[ffutures]

Took about an hour but it worked!