Installing Yosemite / El Capitan on a stubborn 2008 MacBook
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Installing El Capitan on a stubborn 2008 MacBook in 2024
crwdns2934249:0crwdne2934249:0:
I have an old, I believe to be a 2008 A1278 MacBook (It has a separate back cover for the battery & HDD). I do not know what OS was last installed on it as the original HDD was clicking and wouldn't load, so I plan to put an SSD or an old HDD as a last resort inside. I have made a bootable USB with El Capitan and Yosemite ready to use.
When I manage to get it to boot into recovery mode, (The new SSD is formatted to Extended Journaled GUID in the disk utility of the 2008) .It stalls for a long time then I get a cannot be installed error.... (It did at one point load the El Capitan setup but failed half way through (45 minutes).... So I re-downloaded the installer from apple and mounted it to a .app using a 2015 MBP (Monterey 12.7.4) and made a fresh USB installer. Yet still it freezes during initial loading setup....
SO, I am thinking to put the new SSD into a 2012 and install EL Capitan on that and then transfer the SSD to the 2008 model.... Will it boot? What if the 2008 had a different OS before, would the boot ROM or EFI get trashed or have some issue as this gets set during installation correct? I have tried connecting via Ethernet but there is no option for internet recovery that I have seen. At an end here..... Any thoughts?
Installing an old OS on a 2008 using another MacBook 2012
+
Installing Yosemite / El Capitan on a stubborn 2008 MacBook
crwdns2934249:0crwdne2934249:0:
I have an old, I believe to be a 2008 A1278 MacBook (It has a separate back cover for the battery & HDD). I do not know what OS was last installed on it as the original HDD was clicking and wouldn't load, so I plan to put an SSD or an old HDD as a last resort inside. I have made a bootable USB with El Capitan and Yosemite ready to use.
When I manage to get it to boot into recovery mode, (The new SSD is formatted to Extended Journaled GUID in the disk utility of the 2008) .It stalls for a long time then I get a cannot be installed error.... (It did at one point load the El Capitan setup but failed half way through (45 minutes).... So I re-downloaded the installer from apple and mounted it to a .app using a 2015 MBP (Monterey 12.7.4) and made a fresh USB installer. Yet still it freezes during initial loading setup....
SO, I am thinking to put the new SSD into a 2012 and install EL Capitan on that and then transfer the SSD to the 2008 model.... Will it boot? What if the 2008 had a different OS before, would the boot ROM or EFI get trashed or have some issue as this gets set during installation correct? I have tried connecting via Ethernet but there is no option for internet recovery that I have seen. At an end here..... Any thoughts?
Installing an old OS on a 2008 using another MacBook 2012
crwdns2934249:0crwdne2934249:0:
I have an old, I believe to be a 2008 A1278 MacBook (It has a separate back cover for the battery & HDD). I do not know what OS was last installed on it as the original HDD was clicking and wouldn't load, so I plan to put an SSD or an old HDD as a last resort inside. I have made a bootable USB with El Capitan and Yosemite ready to use.
When I manage to get it to boot into recovery mode, (The new SSD is formatted to Extended Journaled GUID in the disk utility of the 2008) .It stalls for a long time then I get a cannot be installed error.... (It did at one point load the El Capitan setup but failed half way through (45 minutes).... So I re-downloaded the installer from apple and mounted it to a .app using a 2015 MBP (Monterey 12.7.4) and made a fresh USB installer. Yet still it freezes during initial loading setup....
SO, I am thinking to put the new SSD into a 2012 and install EL Capitan on that and then transfer the SSD to the 2008 model.... Will it boot? What if the 2008 had a different OS before, would the boot ROM or EFI get trashed or have some issue as this gets set during installation correct? I have tried connecting via Ethernet but there is no option for internet recovery that I have seen. At an end here..... Any thoughts?