Help with installing OSX on an A1212 Macbook Pro 17"

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Level 1

5 points

Help with installing OSX on an A1212 Macbook Pro 17"

Hello. I inherited an old Macbook Pro 17" from my father. A1212 to be exact. I want to get OSX on it. I understand I can't upgrade it fully, but I want to use the latest possible OS. I am using a different hard drive than it came with. It's a 750 GB HDD.

I believe the operating system that came with it is 10.4.8, and it should be able to be upgraded to 10.7.5. Does that mean I should acquire an installer for 10.4.8, or can I start with 10.7.5?

The CD drive does not work, but the USB ports do. I have a USB drive with plenty of space, so if I made an installer disk from it, everything should work okay, right?

I could also access the new hard drive with a SATA adapter, and use my main laptop to create an installer disk out of that, right?

I may have answered all of my own questions but I would like to be sure.

Thanks everyone!

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.5), 15"/2.2GHz/16GB DDR3/1TB HDD

Posted on Jun 17, 2017 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

BobHarris

Level 9

56,909 points

Aug 12, 2017 5:48 PM in response to angelhair00

Start with Snow Leopard 10.6.3

(US $19.99)

<http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard?fnode=e2812 bfb19bb8e21638b62bdb759246afa9f00ab555274520144c856c24131edf9e32ddc6fe78596ac923 8d072032c3e5da557499807f9f6bbac46dbf9e21d854114bdc969bb2fc22e786beebccf33f8e4886 d10377990d365251c879ea0cb58>

Then apply the Snow Leopard 10.6.8 Combo Update v1.1

<https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US>

Finally apply the App Store update

<https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1860?locale=en_US>

At this point you could stop, as Snow Leopard is far more responsive than Lion, and just out out-of-of date.

Or once running Snow Leopard, you can use the Applications -> App Store to buy a Lion redemption code. Once the Redemption code is emailed to the email address associated with your Apple ID, you can use the Applications -> App Store -> Quick Links -> Redeem to download and install Lion.

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