I retrieved an Intel Macbook A1369 that came with OSX Lion. It does not boot. Tried all the bootup magic keys.
Recovery partition, Internet recovery fail consistently. My Macbook Sonoma OSX will not let me create a Bootable Lion USB. I tried all the Terminal article/tricks and DiskUtility options fail. And I mean "ALL".......
My last hope is to buy a bootable Lion installer DVD/CD or USB - unless somebody has a magic wand.
It is not possible to create a bootable USB installer on any Mac that cannot actually run that operating system. Refer to Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support. Since that Mac can run an operating system as late as High Sierra, try to find a Mac that can actually boot and run High Sierra. Those Macs encompass a much wider model range; all the way up to 2017 or so.
OS X 10.7.x "Lion" has never been distributed on DVD/CD or USB. If you find something like that it's an illegitimate copy, with all the concerns that would entail.
I tried all the Terminal article/tricks and DiskUtility options fail. And I mean "ALL".......
Then it is likely the Mac's hardware has failed.
An A1369 is a MacBook Air which has no optical drive anyway. Not a MacBook. Are you certain of that model number?
John Galt wrote:
OS X 10.7.x "Lion" has never been distributed on DVD/CD or USB.
Apple never distributed Lion on DVD/CD, but they did distribute Lion on USB flash drives.
AppleInsider (Jul 20, 2011) – Mac OS X Lion will be available on USB thumb drive for $69 in August
That said, I suspect that most of the USB flash drives on "marketplace" sites that contain Lion are bootlegs, "with all the concerns that would entail."
Thanks John,
I was afraid of that…and will have the hardware checked.
On the optical drive: I have an external Apple drive, which connects via USB. Another relic from the past….
I found the solution here:
A sequence of Terminal commands…
Creating OSX Lion bootable USB from a modern OSX (Sonoma)
