OS X Mavericks: System Requirements

Learn about the system requirements for OS X Mavericks.

To install Mavericks, you need one of these Macs:

• iMac (Mid-2007 or later)
• MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later),
• MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or later)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
• Xserve (Early 2009)

Your Mac also needs:

• OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard v10.6.8 already installed
• 2 GB or more of memory
• 8 GB or more of available space

Unless it's a 15 or 17 inch MacBook, a 2007 is too old.

That WON'T however, keep the Mavericks upgrade from appearing in the AppStore.

Yours may not meet the requirements for Mavericks, but you should do the following regardless:

It may be an Apple ID issue as well; since you purchased this from someone used and it is a 2007 and has Lion, the seller did not do what he is supposed to do: if you obtain any OS or app from the app store, that is tied to your Apple ID forever and cannot be transferred - so you won't be able to reinstall or update until you associate your own Apple ID with it.

First make sure you back up your data as you will lose everything. Try this Internet Recovery: hold Command + Option + R while booting up until you see a spinning globe. That will take quite a while; once you're into a Utilities window, it means you are connected to Apple's servers. Go to Disk Utility and erase your drive completely; then go back to the window and choose to reinstall OS X. It should install Lion.

After that, you should be able to use your own Apple ID for anything from the app store.