How do I determine manufacture date of Macbook 5,1

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Level 1

8 points

How do I determine manufacture date of Macbook 5,1

I am trying to upgrade to Mavericks from Snow Leopard, but after downloading, dialog box states that I cannot use my Macbook HD to install and run Mavericks. The only thing I can figure is that it's somehow related to the manufacture date of this Macbook, but I cannot find the date of this machine, though I presume it's after 2008. But, I need to be sure. It's build identifier is 10K549, if that's helpful. The reason I need to do this is to upgrade my Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom products to their Cloud service. This is getting pretty frustrating, so any help and/or answers would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jan 4, 2014 6:33 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Jan 4, 2014 6:39 AM in response to zinkadoodle

You can put your serial number in here http://www.tuaw.com/2005/04/14/when-was-your-mac-born/

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Answer 2

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Jan 4, 2014 6:43 AM in response to zinkadoodle

Do you have the necessary available hard drive space required to install Mavericks? How much ram?

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Answer 3

zinkadoodle Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2014 7:29 AM in response to SeaPapp

Thank you so much for your promt reply!!! This is the info I got. Does anything here preclude me from installing Mavericks? According to this, it seems that I should be able to install the latest OS X. As for available hard drive space, I do have 73 gb available from a 250 gb drive. That should be enough, right?

Also, I do have 4 gb of RAM, which I thought was the max for this older model. According to this info, it states that I can upgrade to as much as 8 gb. Is it worth it? Or, is it time to just upgrade to a newer machine? As is, this laptop seems to work perfectly, albeit a bit slow when I process images using Photoshop. But, I use my iMac with 12 gb RAM to do all my serious processing. I only need to use the Macbook for limited processing when I travel.

Nice Name: MacBook 13 inch Unibody Core 2 Duo (Late 2008)

Machine Model: MacBook5,1

Name: MacBook Unibody (late 2008)

ModelCode: mb_late_08

Family name: A1278

Model Number: MB467

Group1: MacBook

Group2: nothing

Generation: 6

CPU speed: 2.4GHz

Screen size: 13 inch

Screen resolution: 1280x800 pixels

Colour: Aluminium

Production year: 2009

Production week: 14 (April)

Production number: 7145 (within this week)

Model introduced: 2008

Memory - flavour: DDR3-S-1066

Memory - number of slots: 2

Memory - maximum total: 6/8GB

Memory - largest module: 4GB

Factory: W8 (Shanghai China)

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Answer 4

Jan 4, 2014 7:35 AM in response to zinkadoodle

With respect to hardware requirements, you are good to go.

Advice often posted here from some of the pros is to Repair Permissions before and after a new OS is installed.

Go to: Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility. Run DU, select the drive, click First Aid, then - just to be safe run Repair Disk, and finally Repair Permissions. Now try the download and install.

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Answer 5

zinkadoodle Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2014 7:47 AM in response to Eustace Mendis

Thanks!! I'll run the disk utility right now. Hope this works..

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Answer 6

zinkadoodle Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2014 9:42 AM in response to zinkadoodle

Nope. Didn't work. I get a message that says "This disk cannot be used to start up your computer." Seriously? This is the disk that starts my computer. It's the only disk that starts the computer, as it's the only disk that in the computer. Fact is, I'm typing all this in from this ****** Macbook. I've started up, rebooted, ran all the disk utilities, shut down, rebooted...... This computer will not accept Mavericks. It's so bizarre.

Color me frustrated. :-(

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Answer 7

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Jan 4, 2014 9:57 AM in response to zinkadoodle

Insert your original install disc, or your retail Snow Leopard disc and start up while holding the C key. Choose your language then go to the Utilities menu and select a Disk Utility and repair the hard drive. You can't repair the disk that is the booted volume, you must start up from another volume, in this case the install disc.

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