MacBook Pro A1211, deleted Lion, now stuck

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MacBook Pro A1211, deleted Lion, now stuck

Hey all. I'm close to a solution I feel but just need a push over the finish line.

I bought a second hand A1211 MacBook Pro today with Lion installed. To be cautious of any pre-installed spyware on the device I decided to wipe the HD and start a fresh install of the OS. I thought it would be a simple enough process.

I managed to wipe the OS and now no matter what it boots to the Mac OS X Utilities screen. Choosing the "Reinstall Mac OS X" option will not work because, from what I can deduce, it is trying to still verify if I have ever purchased Lion which I have not. I own a 2014 iMac with El Capitan on it, but not Lion nor am I willing to buy years old software from Apple just to boot this thing up, there has to be another way.

I've read about partitioning the Macintosh HD to fully erase files on there that it may be trying to check for, which would somehow magically allow it to re-install a fresh version of the OS it shipped with. I tried to partition the main HD in disk utility but it told me it couldn't unmount the disk. I've been scouring these forums and YouTube for hours. It's late, I'm frustrated.

So, as I said, I feel like I'm almost there just not sure what to do. Any and all help is appreciated.

Posted on Nov 26, 2015 6:06 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 26, 2015 7:57 PM in response to Two_Wheeled_Rebel

You need to be able to run Installer/Utilities from somewhere. This can be any one of:

To install the original version:

• Internet Recovery (available in most 2011 and later MacBooks, not available for your pre-2010 MacBook)

• the original DVDs

To re-install last-running version:

• Recovery Partition on your old drive (this may not be working, and if you remove the old drive first, it will not be available)

... you can run your new drive in an external enclosure to Install Mac OS X, and it is bootable from there.

• a properly-made Installer/Utilities USB stick from DiskMakerX (or the createinstallmedia Terminal command in Yosemite and later)

• a working Time Machine Backup later than 10.7.3 should include a bootable Recovery partition

• a 1GB or larger USB stick copy of Recovery made with Recovery Disk Assistant

Since this is a second-hand Mac, you can not re-Install the last-running version because you do not have the Apple-ID of the original purchaser. Much as this may irk you, you may need to buy the Mac OS X 10.6 release DVD from the Apple Online Store, delivered by mail. When fully updated to 10.6.8, it will give you access to the Mac App Store and you can re-download a previous purchase or install El Capitan.

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