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User profile for user: rscb
rscb Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Unable to erase hard drive Macbook pro mid 2009

Hello – I can't get help from Apple support for this so I'm appealing to the experts.


Macbook Pro 15" mid 2009. The machine had El Capitan installed and was working fine until suddenly it refused to boot up. I erased the disk and installed Snow Leopard using a CD. It worked. Then I had the brilliant idea to try to upgrade to El Capitan. I downloaded it from the Apple website, opened from within Applications and went through the install process. It got to 1 second remaining and then it claimed that it could go no further. In successive attempts, it provided a helpful log full of report crash etc. information. (I've reinstalled El Capitan on this machine in the past and put in the terminal command to change the date so the OS would work but none of this knowledge has helped this time around. Terminal doesn't even accept that the date could be changed.)


I then tried to erase the hard drive but Disk Utility said it could not complete the task because it could not unmount the disk. In addition to the hard drive, there are 2 disk images showing called OS X Install ESD and OS X Base System. I can't do anything with either of those. I can run first aid on the hard drive and though it says it's been repaired, I still can't erase it.


I can't get the machine out of this loop of trying to install El Capitan. I would like to use my Snow Leopard CD and just go back to that operating system but I am not sure when to put in the CD to allow it to be recognized rather than El Capitan. There must be a terminal command to erase the drive and/or make this loop stop. Or perhaps there's a keyboard command and a time to put in the CD that would work?

Thank you for any guidance. Rachel

MacBook Pro, OS X 10.11

Posted on Apr 6, 2021 4:39 PM

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User profile for user: Limnos
Limnos
User level: Level 10
411,265 points

Posted on Apr 7, 2021 9:23 PM

It really depends upon what you want to do with this machine. Snow Leopard was a great OS but is quite old. Often one of the things to break with old OS versions are browsers. I remember what finally forced me to do one upgrade was the fact that my browser would no longer work with many web pages.


Upgrading a macOS depends upon the model Mac, specifications, and year. To get more information about your computer, choose:  (Apple menu) > 'About This Mac' in the upper left corner of any window, then "More Info..." or "System Report". There's more about this in "About System Information [Profiler] on your Mac" - https://support.apple.com/HT203001


One critical number is RAM (memory). Most OS versions of that vintage will say 2 GB minimum but in reality those minimum recommendations undershoot what you need for comfortably running a computer. If 2 is all you have then perhaps stick with Snow Leopard unless you happen across some inexpensive RAM upgrade.

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User profile for user: Limnos
Limnos
User level: Level 10
411,265 points

Apr 7, 2021 9:23 PM in response to rscb

It really depends upon what you want to do with this machine. Snow Leopard was a great OS but is quite old. Often one of the things to break with old OS versions are browsers. I remember what finally forced me to do one upgrade was the fact that my browser would no longer work with many web pages.


Upgrading a macOS depends upon the model Mac, specifications, and year. To get more information about your computer, choose:  (Apple menu) > 'About This Mac' in the upper left corner of any window, then "More Info..." or "System Report". There's more about this in "About System Information [Profiler] on your Mac" - https://support.apple.com/HT203001


One critical number is RAM (memory). Most OS versions of that vintage will say 2 GB minimum but in reality those minimum recommendations undershoot what you need for comfortably running a computer. If 2 is all you have then perhaps stick with Snow Leopard unless you happen across some inexpensive RAM upgrade.

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User profile for user: Limnos
Limnos
User level: Level 10
411,265 points

Apr 6, 2021 7:44 PM in response to rscb

I think you held down the C key while starting the computer to get it to boot from the CD. To repair or erase the main drive you have to be booted from another drive.


I don't know ESD. I think since Mountain Lion, when you install an OS it actually splits your drive into two. One is a the regular system and the other is known as a rescue partition. The rescue partition is small and has a very basic operating system on it plus some utilities. This allows you to boot to it and use it to repair you main drive, since Apple stopped providing systems on DVDs after Snow Leopard. It is possible your rescue partition is labeled EFI.

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User profile for user: rscb
rscb Author
User level: Level 1
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Apr 6, 2021 8:21 PM in response to Limnos

Update: I did finally figure out how to get it to boot with the CD Snow Leopard. It gave me three options, Snow Leopard CD, Recovery, and Install OS X so I chose CD to install Snow Leopard. It started the install but the same thing happened as with El Capitan: Install stops and I get a log of of crash report data and it won't go any further.


I did try to partition the hard drive but Disk Utility wouldn't allow it.

Where do I find the EFI rescue partition? thank you...

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User profile for user: rscb
rscb Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Apr 7, 2021 4:17 PM in response to Limnos

Thank you for the suggestion of using the DVD's utilities. I changed the date back to 2009 from 2017 in Terminal just in case that was the issue. And I used OSX Tiger utilities, which allowed me to erase the disk. Tiger then loaded fine and Snow Leopard on top of that. Thanks again.

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User profile for user: rscb
rscb Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Apr 8, 2021 7:34 AM in response to Limnos

I did upgrade the RAM to 4. But as you say, websites not loading is the issue. Chrome does work whereas Safari doesn't load anything except Apple.com. My mother can live with Chrome (this is all so she can do email, print things, and watch You Tubes of people singing and dancing). I guess I'm set then with Snow Leopard. Thank you!

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User profile for user: Limnos
Limnos
User level: Level 10
411,265 points

Apr 8, 2021 7:50 AM in response to rscb

With 4 GB RAM it should be able to run El Capitan, if not super speedy. I think your drive is having issues which could cause any system version to crash.


Chrome is a resource hog. Resource hogs = slow + potential crashes.


Personally I'd go with Firefox. Yes, it has it own issues (but they all do) but I have run it on a Leopard computer and it still seemed to work. Here are some hard-to-find links to old versions:


https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/releases/ - Firefox Releases


https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/40.0/system-requirements/

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Unable to erase hard drive Macbook pro mid 2009

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