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User profile for user: ImMrGEE
ImMrGEE Author
User level: Level 1
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Help Me! New Mac User messing it up!

I am new to the mac world so this may sound elementary to some. I bought my daughter a 2008 Macbook (the white one) and it only had a 160 gb hdd. I upgraded the machine to mountain lion and backed up her files in time machine. Since the hdd is so small I bought her a 1TB hdd and installed it. I have been trying everything to boot to the external hdd that time machine is on or i have a 10.7 Lion USB, or if needed I have a Mac OS X Snow Leopard cd if I need to go back that far. When I turn the system on it chimes has a whit/grey screen and then a folder with a question mark starts flashing and that is it. Please help me!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 14, 2013 7:29 AM

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User profile for user: sheila_m.
sheila_m.
User level: Community Specialist

Jul 16, 2013 8:19 AM in response to ImMrGEE

Hello ImMrGEE,


Welcome to the Apple Support Communities, and congratulations on the new MacBook! You have not messed anything up and are on the right track. The next step is to install Snow Leopard using the Snow Leopard Installation Disc.


You can find the steps to install Snow Leopard to the new 1 TB hard drive in the following article. You will need to format the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using the steps in Part One of the following article and then follow the rest of the article to install Snow Leopard:


Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard: How to Erase and Install

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3910


Once you have Snow Leopard installed, you will need to run all of your software updates, and then install Mountain Lion from the purchased section of the Mac App Store. Steps 3-6 in the following article outline how to reinstall Mountain Lion after you have already purchased it:


How to install Lion or Mountain Lion on multiple computers

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4854


Finally, you can restore your Time Machine backup to the system using Migration Assistant. I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Time Machine or other disk migration" in the following article:


How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889


Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.


Best,

Sheila M.

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Help Me! New Mac User messing it up!

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