Hello,
I received an old MacBook from a friend - a A1278.
Issue is is that it boots directly into OS X Utilities and it won't allow me to Reinstall OS.
I've been going through help articles but cannot find anything.
Anyone able to help?
There is a very good chance the internal hard drive is bad & may be the source of the problem.
If this happens to be a Late-2009 to mid-2012 laptop, then try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to attempt to access the online macOS installer for a later version of macOS (10.13 or 10.15 depending on the exact model) since maybe the installer on the local hard drive may be damaged.
You can try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected, unfortunately the diagnostic rarely detects hard drive failures unless they are severe.
There are other better ways to check the health of the hard drive, but that either first requires installing macOS to an external USB drive & booting from it so you can install a third party app to check the drive's health, or it requires creating & booting a special Linux USB stick which has the necessary app to check a drive's health. I can provide more details if I know which option you prefer to use.
There is a very good chance the internal hard drive is bad & may be the source of the problem.
If this happens to be a Late-2009 to mid-2012 laptop, then try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to attempt to access the online macOS installer for a later version of macOS (10.13 or 10.15 depending on the exact model) since maybe the installer on the local hard drive may be damaged.
You can try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected, unfortunately the diagnostic rarely detects hard drive failures unless they are severe.
There are other better ways to check the health of the hard drive, but that either first requires installing macOS to an external USB drive & booting from it so you can install a third party app to check the drive's health, or it requires creating & booting a special Linux USB stick which has the necessary app to check a drive's health. I can provide more details if I know which option you prefer to use.
If you have access to another working Mac, then you may be able to use it to create a bootable macOS USB installer.
All A1278 models can run macOS 10.11 El Capitan and that is the highest version of macOS that can be used on an Early/Mid-2009 MBPro. The other A1278 models from Late-2009 to mid-2012 can run macOS 10.13 as well with the mid-2012 model able to use macOS 10.15.
Generally the following are the Mac models compatible with various versions of macOS:
You can confirm a particular Mac is compatible with a certain OS by using the information in the following article:
https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility
Here is an Apple article with instructions for creating a bootable macOS USB installer if you have access to another working Mac compatible with an OS your A1278 laptop:
Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
If you don't have another Mac, perhaps a friend, family member, or co-worker has a compatible Mac.
You could try the complete internet recovery Option-Shift-Command-R.
This should do a internet recovery to the original OS.
If not, download the Yosemite 10.10.iso image from https://archive.org/details/macOS-X-images
Get USB drive
Use Anyburn to then create a bootable usb with the DD option.
When that finishes boot the mac from usb (the option key) It will be titled "Mac OS Base System".
Then install per normal
I have tried to boot into Internet Recovery Mode, unfortunately, it does not seem to work, I have tried it via various methods.
I have tried to run Apple Diagnostics, but this did not work either.
I've seen about creating a driver through a USB, but only have windows computer.
Unable To Install OS on MacBook A1278
