Replace Hard Drive in 2009 MacBook

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Level 1

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Replace Hard Drive in 2009 MacBook

Greetings, My internal hard drive In my "Late 2009" White MacBook has given up the ghost. I purchased a new SSD to replace it and I have a Time Machine backup. The question is How do I go about transferring the Time Machine data to the new drive? I am unable to start up in that there is no system on the new drive. I am stumped. The startup with "command R" recovery only works with 2010 and later models. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Best, David

MacBook, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jan 15, 2021 6:43 AM

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Answer 1

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a brody

Level 10

82,758 points

Jan 15, 2021 7:31 AM in response to davidramsey

command-R will not work on pre-mid 2011 Macs that did not have the firmware installed. And actually it is command-option-shift-R for those that had the firmware installed. You need the original installer discs or a 10.6.3 retail installer, which you combo update to 10.6.8, and then update to Mac OS X 10.11, 10.12, or 10.13.

The installer once you have the App Store (only found on 10.6.6 or later, but the upgrades to 10.11 or later require 10.6.8) is found is on this page:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683

Note, if you update to 10.13, you will have it automatically reformat the drive as APFS, which is unreadable to 10.12 and earlier.

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Answer 2

davidramsey Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 19, 2021 7:22 AM in response to a brody

Thank you for your assistance. David

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Replace Hard Drive in 2009 MacBook

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