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nampramos

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 14, 2010
451
32
Hi guys!

I have been trying to fix this for almost a week now and I cannot seem to find the problem!

I have a MacBook 5,1 (aluminum) which came originally with Leopard installed.

I tried doing a clean install with Mountain Lion and something went terrible wrong and it couldn't install.

I had to go find the old DVD with Leopard installation and make a clean install with it. After that I tried installing SL with a bootable USB drive (I downloaded the dmg from the internet, can´t find that DVD anywhere unfortunately). The install won't work, I get a message saying Mac OS X can't be installed in this computer.

I had purchased Lion on the app store when I was running SL before and I have here the dmg but I can't upgrade from Leopard to Lion with it.


Now I'm the the middle of a big problem that I can't manage to fix!


Any ideas?

Much appreciated!
 

NathanA

macrumors 6502a
Feb 9, 2008
739
16
After that I tried installing SL with a bootable USB drive (I downloaded the dmg from the internet, can´t find that DVD anywhere unfortunately). The install won't work, I get a message saying Mac OS X can't be installed in this computer.
In all likelihood, the DMG of SL that you downloaded isn't a copy of the retail disc, but is instead a SL install disc for a specific model of Mac. The "bundled" discs do not install on just any Mac. You need the retail disc.

You *can* clean-install Lion, I believe. Just write the DMG included in the Lion app that you downloaded from the App Store to a USB drive (as you did for SL) and boot straight from that.

-- Nathan
 

nampramos

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 14, 2010
451
32
Actually, I was able to use my girlfriends MacBook Air which was already running Mountain Lion and install a copy to my MacBook drive by taking the drive out of my MacBook and connecting it via USB to her MacBook Air. Now I am up and running on my MacBook but have one problem:

When I turn it on I need to press the option key + C and choose the drive with OS X in it (it is the only drive there, with only one partition). I guess this is due to the installation been done via USB to an external drive at the time.

Is there a way to change that now without needing to re-format and re-install?

Thanks!
 

verizoniphone4

macrumors newbie
Feb 2, 2012
18
0
Actually, I was able to use my girlfriends MacBook Air which was already running Mountain Lion and install a copy to my MacBook drive by taking the drive out of my MacBook and connecting it via USB to her MacBook Air. Now I am up and running on my MacBook but have one problem:

When I turn it on I need to press the option key + C and choose the drive with OS X in it (it is the only drive there, with only one partition). I guess this is due to the installation been done via USB to an external drive at the time.

Is there a way to change that now without needing to re-format and re-install?

Thanks!

You need to set the Startup Disk.

System Preferences -> Startup Disk -> Choose disk -> Click Restart
 
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