The Hard Drive Failed On My 2009 Mac Mini Need To Re-Install OS X

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The Hard Drive Failed On My 2009 Mac Mini Need To Re-Install OS X

My 2009 Mac Mini has recently encountered a hard drive failure, I have no backup or usb installer drive. I have a replacement hard drive, but with this comes a couple of questions. Does my new hard drive need to be blank? as it is currently running a bootable version of Ubuntu. I'm assuming this isn't a major issue as I can format it in the bios, right?

Secondly I am having trouble trying to create bootable media for yosemite, my only other mac is a 2007 mac mini which runs 10.7 lion. Does anyone have a guide on this or any useful links.

Thank You.

Mac mini

Posted on Jun 3, 2015 1:47 AM

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Answer 1

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lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Jun 3, 2015 2:10 AM in response to Shanestir

- On the old Mac download the Lion installer fro the Purchases section of the Mac App Store and make bootable USB media and boot the 2009 Mini from that media. I use this to make bootable USB media

DiskMaker X

- Use your Snow Leopard install DVD and boot from it and install SL and fully update it and then download the Yosemite installer from the Mac App Store and install it.

In any event you have to use Disk Utility to format the new disk and then install the OS

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Answer 2

Shanestir Author

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Jun 3, 2015 2:22 AM in response to lllaass

I only have a leopard 10.5 install DVD and there is no lion installer in my purchased section.

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Answer 3

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Jun 3, 2015 2:54 AM in response to Shanestir

Then how was Lion installed on the 2007 Mac?

You can connect the two Macs via a FireWire cable. Note the 2007 Mini has FW 400 and the 2009 has FW 800 so you need an adopter cable. Then boot the 2009 Mini is Target Disk mode

How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode - Apple Support

Boot the 2007 into Recovery

OS X: About OS X Recovery

Format the 2009 HD and then clone the 2007 HD to the 2009 HD

You can also use an app to clone to. See:

http://nyacomputing.com/how-to-create-a-bootable-clone-of-your-mac-hard-drive/

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