Q: Unable to clone a Mavericks disc to an iMac which had El capitan on it
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Nov 19, 2015 3:51 AMby woodmeister50,Helpfuldougfromdover wrote:
Hello
I have just bought a mid 2011 iMac (27" i5 2.7 MHz) with a Fusion Drive 1.1 TB, and El Capitan installed.
As I use audio plugins that are not compatible with El Capitan, I have tried to clone a Mavericks disc from another iMac. The copy completes successfully and the target drive is confirmed as 'bootable', however it will not boot up. It gets half-way through the boot up process and then shows the 'no enrty' sign.
I have repeated the whole process without success.
Would this be an issue with the fusion drive? Or as El Capitan has been on it, has that left the fusion drive incapable of recognising an older OS?
Any help would be appreciated.
Have you tried to boot from the drive that is the source of your clone?
If it was done properly, it would boot on any Mac capable of running
Mavericks. Perhaps the clone source is corrupted and is therefore not
cloning to the iMac properly.
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Nov 18, 2015 12:05 PMby Kurt Lang,this was already cloned from a Macbook Pro and works without problems.
That's the problem. You cannot clone a setup from one Mac to another and expect it to work. The hardware drivers for the Mac you cloned to are missing, so it won't boot. It was just luck that the same clone worked on the older iMac.
The seller should not have left El Capitan on the 2011 iMac. It was purchased under their App Store ID and will not reinstall without you knowing what the ID and password is. It should have been erased and the original OS reinstalled.
According to www.everymac.com, your 2011 iMac shipped with Snow Leopard, 10.6.6. This means you cannot use a retail SL disk since that is 10.6.3. If you did not get the original gray disks from the seller, you'll have to call Apple and order exact replacement disks. They'll ask for the serial number so you get the correct disks. Once you have those, then boot to the install DVD and completely repartition the drive to remove everything on it, then install Snow Leopard. 10.6.6 will have the App Store on it, so there's no need to install any more updates to move to the next OS.
Then login to your App Store account and install Mavericks, assuming you purchased it when it was available. If not, you can't get it anymore.
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Nov 18, 2015 12:32 PMby dougfromdover,Thank you for this information. I have the original install discs for my Macbook Pro but although an i5, it's only a dual core, so I guess from what you say that the quad core iMac won't like that either.
I did purchase Mavericks so that's available on the App store.
I don't think the eBay seller still has the discs. Isn't there some way around this though? As Csound1 posted before, perhaps I could start up the new machine from the old one in target mode and then download the OS onto the internal drive... in any case I can't actually do anything until I get to work tomorrow.
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Nov 18, 2015 12:55 PMby dougfromdover,Edited paragraph:
Isn't there some way around this though? Perhaps I could start up the new machine from the old one in target mode - and then download Mavericks and install it... in any case I can't actually try anything until I get to work tomorrow.
Many thanks for everyone's help!
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Nov 18, 2015 1:04 PMby R C-R,dougfromdover wrote:
I don't think the eBay seller still has the discs. Isn't there some way around this though?
Yes, probably. You should be able to use OS X Internet Recovery to erase the iMac's drive & install the original version of OS X 10.6.x that came with it.
However, since this is a mid 2011 iMac, you may need to install a firmware update to be able to use Internet Recovery. (See Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery - Apple Support for more about that.)
Note that:
1) You will need a broadband internet connection for this & it may take quite a while to do, depending on the speed of your connection.
2) This will erase everything currently on the iMac's drive, so make sure you have a backup of anything you want to keep & a way to install any apps you want to use with it.
3) You will still need to do as Kurt suggested & update the OS to Mavericks via the App Store.
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Nov 18, 2015 1:18 PMby dougfromdover,Thanks for that. The Snow Leopard that came with the Macbook Pro is 10.6.6 Could this DVD work or would it only have drivers for the Macbook?
Also, I know the fusion drive is configurable, (presumably at the install stage) which might have a bearing on the issue.
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Nov 18, 2015 1:34 PMby Kurt Lang,Since you already have Mavericks under your account, the easiest thing to do would be to create your own bootable USB installer.
First get yourself an 8 GB flash drive. Download Mavericks to any Mac. It doesn't matter which one. When the installer launches, quit. Then use DiskMaker X to create a Mavericks USB installer.
Now you can boot the 2011 iMac to the USB drive, erase the drive and install Mavericks. The App Store version will have the proper hardware drivers for that Mac so it will run properly.
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Nov 18, 2015 2:32 PMby R C-R,dougfromdover wrote:
The Snow Leopard that came with the Macbook Pro is 10.6.6 Could this DVD work or would it only have drivers for the Macbook?
No, as has been mentioned several times now, you can't use a DVD that came with another Mac. (That answer will not change however you ask about it! ) Likewise, cloning from another Mac will at best be problematic & should be avoided.
You now have several good ways to install Mavericks, so choose the one that works best for you. Kurt's method using Disk Maker X would be a good choice if your Internet connection speed where you are now is significantly higher than where the iMac is, although booting from & installing the OS from a USB 2 flash drive can be frustratingly slow, so take that into consideration. The Internet Recovery method I mentioned does not require using a flash drive & might be more desirable if you don't want to install any additional software or don't have a lot of available space on one of your Macs for the Mavericks download.
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Nov 19, 2015 3:50 AMby dougfromdover,It booted fine with the older iMac in target mode and I have now downloaded and installed Mavericks - quite painless really!
As for the fusion drive (it was obviously a DIY job), it's only configurable from the terminal as two distinct drives or as one logical device.
I've used RAID before but not a fusion drive; while every disc in a RAID array would be reduced to the capacity of the smallest disc, this is different, and the little SSD acts as a high-speed front end. Very clever!
Many thanks to everyone for their input.
