I need a 2008 MacBook Pro OS Upgrade from 10.7.5

You'll need to ask. The 2008 MacBooks are officially considered "obsolete" by Apple and they provide no official support, but an Apple Store might be willing to help. Note, however, that if they can, they'll probably want to upgrade it to the most recent version of macOS your 2008 Mac will support which will be macOS 10.11 El Capitan. But talk to the store and see what if anything they can do.

Note, however, that upgrading macOS may well render any deleted files unrecoverable due to them being possibly overwritten. Why to you need to upgrade? Is it to run a file recovery utility that requires Mavericks or later? If so, you may want to try to find a utility that will run on your version of macOS and see if that will get back the files you want before you try upgrading the OS.

Regards.

NB> if you only "need" to upgrade to use a particular tool, I recommend you use an older version of that tool, or a different tool instead.

Try to restart your Mac the smallest possible number of times.

The data blocks holding your deleted files have been added to the Drive's FreeList. ANY files written since that delete will take blocks from the FreeList, and could over-write the blocks you are trying to rescue.

In most cases, you will need a different external drive onto which to write rescued files.

JD1701 wrote:

To recover some deleted files, I need to upgrade to Mavericks. Can I take my laptop to my local Apple store to have this done?

see "Use a web browser for older versions"

ref: The older macOS installer backups:

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

you can call your store and ask them if you are having an issue

Local USA—

Store List - Apple Store - Apple

Around the World—

Choose your country or region - Apple

Back up your data, check the application compatibility table, click here, and then on the download link for Yosemite or El Capitan. Mavericks is no longer available.

If the files you're trying to recover are on the computer's internal drive, restart from an external one before downloading or installing the OS; writing any additional data to a drive decreases the chance of being able to recover files from it.

(257420)

deleted files are VERY likely be overwritten in the process of upgrading your Mac.

do you have another Mac? you MAY be able to use Target Disk Mode. Unfortunately, the article has been "modernized":

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode - Apple Support

is the 10.7.5 Mac operational? you could enable File sharing and connect to it over your home network:

Set up file sharing on Mac - Apple Support

or possibly even use screen sharing to be present on the old Mac and do whatever you need to do as if you were there:

Turn Mac screen sharing on or off - Apple Support

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

do you have another Mac? you MAY be able to use Target Disk Mode. Unfortunately, the article has been "modernized":

Transfer files between two Mac computers using target disk mode - Apple Support

Not only that – Apple added a requirement that if either computer is running Big Sur or later, the connection must be a Thunderbolt one!

If this is accurate, and not merely a "suggestion", then it will be impossible for any Mac released in the last several years to make a Target Disk Mode connection. In particular, no Apple Silicon (M-series) Mac is capable of running anything earlier than Big Sur. While Apple Silicon Macs support a mode that lets you use THEM as USB disks, they do not support using other Macs as USB (or FireWire) disks.

So someone trying to use the 2018 MBP as a Target Disk would need another Intel Mac old enough to run Catalina or earlier. Then maybe a USB or FireWire Target Disk connection would be possible.

I wonder if pulling the hard drive out of that 2008 MBP and putting the drive into an external USB enclosure would make sense. Then one could access the drive as an external drive (not as a startup drive) on a newer Mac.

There are lots of tool-free USB enclosures for 2.5" SATA notebook drives.

I don't know if there are any enclosures with write-protect switches. What I'm worried about here is the possibility that if you attached the drive to a new Mac, Spotlight would want to create a reverse index of the files on the drive and would write a bunch of stuff to the drive in the process, possibly overwriting the bits and pieces of the deleted files that one had hoped to recover.

Servant of Cats wrote:

I wonder if pulling the hard drive out of that 2008 MBP and putting the drive into an external USB enclosure would make sense. Then one could access the drive as an external drive (not as a startup drive) on a newer Mac.

I had thought of that, but this is the older style chassis where the Top Case must be removed to access the internal drive. Removing the Top Case Assembly was tricky to do because of the snap clips along the front edge of the laptop. It required rotating & even slightly bending them....sometimes with a bit of effort, and even then it may still require prying it apart. If done incorrectly it could separate the plastic palmrest from the underlying metal frame, or it could damage the clips, or even the optical drive by accidentally compressing the optical drive opening. Not an issue if the laptop is not intended to be re-used & kept in good shape.

If it was the unibody model, then removing the drive is very easy since it is accessed by removing the battery or Bottom Case depending on the model. I think the 2009 model was the first unibody model (except perhaps for the Late-2008 Aluminum MacBook ....not the Pro).

Note that there is no link to a Mavericks download in the Apple support pages showing older OS versions. Apple have not given a reason for its absence.