mountain lion won't install on macbook pro 3,1

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mountain lion won't install on macbook pro 3,1

We have a MacBook Pro version 3,1 computer with 10.6.8 running.

Plenty of disc left, 2 Gb RAM.

The install process goes in a loop, from app store to www.apple.com/osx to pushing the "upgrade" button and back to the app store page.

I'm not really a Mac kind of person, it can tell.

I ran a hard disk utility to check and correct permissions but it didn't help.

any thoughts out there? I just want to run lightroom 5 and it needs 10.7 or better.

Can I buy 10.7 someplace?

Thanks

Darrell

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), upgrade fails

Posted on Jun 25, 2013 2:46 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

jayv.

Level 4

1,303 points

Jun 25, 2013 3:00 PM in response to darrellsmith

Hello darrellsmith,

While i currently have no solution or suggestion for your problem, i would like to mention that even though Mountain Lion technically supports your model MacBook Pro, i advise against upgrading to mountain lion. It will put significant strain on your system resources and most tasks will perform very slow. If you really do need Mountain Lion, at least upgrade your RAM to 4GB. I know that 2GB is the minimum requirements but you'll lose those 2GB by just booting up and starting Safari. Add the software you want to use on top of that and your performance will be severely impacted.

Also, make sure you have a good backup of all your data. Upgrading an older system and skipping a major release in the process can create some issues or bring issues to light that you already had but just were not aware of.

A possible solution could be to create a bootable installer on an external drive, instructions can be found here.

For your system, OS X 10.6.8 would be the recommended OS and will give the smoothest performance. You will, as you've noticed, be limited to the applications you can run.

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Answer 2

putnik

Level 4

1,179 points

Jun 25, 2013 3:11 PM in response to darrellsmith

The requirements for Mountain Lion are given here, your late 2007 MBP may qualify:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5444?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4132

The OS is registered to you rather than the computer, through your AppleID in the Apple Store (MAS). If you get a copy of any OS elsewhere it will not be supported for updates etc.

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Answer 3

darrellsmith Author

Level 1

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Jun 25, 2013 3:11 PM in response to jayv.

Thanks for the quick and informed reply to my question. Yes, I think bumping up the RAM to a more reasonable 4 Gb is a good idea, and creating a disaster recovery plan makes good sense too.

I'll certainly take those steps to take care of the data.

Do you know if I can get 10.7 from Apple? It would solve my problem of wanting to run Lightroom on this computer.

Thanks again

Darrell

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Answer 4

nbar

Level 5

7,019 points

Jun 25, 2013 3:18 PM in response to darrellsmith

ML's 64 bit kernel will eat up 2 gb memory.

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Answer 5

jayv.

Level 4

1,303 points

Jun 25, 2013 3:25 PM in response to darrellsmith

Lion was removed from the App Store when Mountain Lion was released. You can still find the USB installer though but you would have to get it from a place like eBay,check here.

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Answer 6

petermac87

Level 5

7,447 points

Jun 25, 2013 3:33 PM in response to darrellsmith

darrellsmith wrote:

Do you know if I can get 10.7 from Apple? It would solve my problem of wanting to run Lightroom on this computer.

Thanks again

Darrell

You can purchase a copy from Apple via phone where you will be emailed the download link and a code. Just contact Apple in your country.

Cheers

Pete

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Answer 7

jayv.

Level 4

1,303 points

Jun 25, 2013 3:34 PM in response to petermac87

Sweet, i didn't know that 🙂

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