Can't Install Any Mac OS on Core 2 Duo Macbook

Question

My old hard drive died and so I bought a new SSD, I put it in my macbook and plugged in the USB hard drive with the installation media, but no matter what it just won't boot into the installer: I see the bootable disk icon after pressing power + option ⏻ + ⌥, but as soon as I press the ↑ icon I get a prohibited icon and nothing more.

I have tried with macOS High Sierra, Yosemite and Mavericks images but they all do the same.

I tried everything:

TransMac
dd'ing the images into the USB hard drive (after converting the .dmgs into .isos with dmg2img (linux)
Creating an HFS+ filesystem and dumping the contents of the dmgs there

I have to note that I tried using the createinstallmedia command present in the installer's Resources directory (before my disk died) but I couldn't run it because this mac has a 32 bit OS and the file (according to the file command) is for a x86_64 arch.

I also tried with Mac OS X Snow Leopard (which is just one minor version above the one I had installed on the original drive, 10.5 Leopard) by dd'ing the boot disk into my USB drive and it does boot, but after 1 minute or so the apple symbol gets replaced with a prohibited symbol and does nothing, even the disk activity LED stops blinking. If I dump the contents on an HFS+ partition it boots up to the language selection part, but a few seconds after selecting the language during the "Preparing installation" progress bar window,the window closes and a notification window pops up that says "The disk could not be read correctly, please clean it and try again" or something like that, and I can't do anything.

Apparently my Macbook is supported by High Sierra (according to Apple) and I do have the minimum 2 GB required (albeit DDR2 667 MHz), but I shouldn't have a problem I guess.

Using some kind of 3rd party boot utility I managed to cram 10.8 into a C2D Mini once. — Prof. Falken, Jun 01 '18 at 06:58

Monomeeth · Answer 1 · 2018-06-01T11:41:51.147

5

You don't specify the exact model of Core 2 Duo MacBook you're using, so the first thing to try is see if you can actually boot into macOS Recovery over the Internet, as some models were able to have their firmware updated to do just that.

First you need to be somewhere where you will be able to access the internet - however this works best with Wi-Fi networks using WEP and WPA security

Follow these steps:

Ensure your MacBook is fully powered off
Hold down the CommandOptionR keys and press the Power button
Keep holding down the keys until you see a spinning globe with the message Starting Internet Recovery
Soon you’ll see a progress bar - be patient as this may take a while
Eventually the Utilities screen will appear
Choose the Reinstall option
Follow the prompts

If your MacBook is not compatible with Internet Recovery let me know and we’ll go to plan B.

edited Jun 01 '18 at 11:41

answered May 31 '18 at 22:51

Monomeeth

64,558

Is there any Core 2 Duo model Mac that supports internet recovery? – jornane Jun 01 '18 at 11:16
@jornane I don't believe there is, the firmware predates it. – Gargravarr Jun 01 '18 at 11:17
@jornane Yes, there is. For example, the OP specifically mentions they have a MacBook and the 13” mid-2010 model supports internet recovery and has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. – Monomeeth Jun 01 '18 at 11:24
@Gargravarr That’s correct but users could download a firmware update on a number of Macs (incl. those with Intel Core 2 Duo processors). For a list of these refer to: Computers that can be upgraded to use internet recovery. – Monomeeth Jun 01 '18 at 11:29
@Monomeeth good find, but it sounds like that has to be explicitly applied by the end user. There's a good chance OP's MBP has not been patched. – Gargravarr Jun 01 '18 at 11:34
@Gargravarr Ah yes, I see my answer was slightly ambiguous in this regard. I’ve just updated it to remove any ambiguity. Thanks for the feedback! :) – Monomeeth Jun 01 '18 at 11:43

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 01 '18 at 02:03

I tried again with another image, this by dumping it in the HFS+ partition and it does the same stuff as before: it fails during the "Preparing installation" window. However, I tried again by dd'ing the same disk image into my USB drive and it worked! I was able to select the language, select the target disk and finish the installation correctly. My best guess is that newer images aren't compatible with it and that the other disk was bad.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 01 '18 at 11:21

If I recall correctly, dd'ing the OS DMGs to an HDD doesn't work - there's further DMGs several deep in the OS installer that have to be extracted (surely an Apple way to discourage people tinkering with their OSes...) and thus the createinstallmedia script exists. I've tried doing this manually with dd and given up.

For your machine to officially support High Sierra with a Core 2 Duo, Wikipedia suggests you have a Mid-2010 Unibody machine. The machines with CD drives were more at home booting installation media from disc rather than USB, so if you have an older OS install (e.g. Snow Leopard), it may be an option to install that, then go the long upgrade process. Worth noting is that Snow Leopard is the minimum required to update the OS from the App Store, but Lion is the minimum for creating USB bootable media with createinstallmedia. So for example, you could:

install Snow Leopard from DVD
upgrade to Lion through the App Store
download High Sierra
createinstallmedia
boot from USB

Complicated, I know, but adding to the issue is that I believe none of the C2D-based machines supported Internet Recovery, so installing from local media is essentially your only option.

You may also be able to get an installation USB if you are anywhere near an Apple Store, or if you or a friend have another Mac running a newer OS.

If you can get into Recovery Mode by pressing Cmd+R at boot, and can get into Disk Utility, you may be able to directly install a pre-built DMG made on another Mac (this is how I image MacBooks for my company).

Your ability to install this machine is going to hinge pretty heavily on getting access to another Mac, I'm afraid.

Can't Install Any Mac OS on Core 2 Duo Macbook

3 Answers3