hey everyone i picked up a old 2007 imac from work and it works great, however before i could take it i needed to erase everything off the hdd and since i didnt have my snow leopard dvd with me i had to install windows 7 32 bit, well now i have it home and want to install SL so i can install 10.7 but i cannot get it to boot from the dvd when i try to go to the boot menu it just spits out the disc, is there anyway for me to reinstall os x?
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2007 imac need to reinstall os
- Thread starter luke9511
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You don't have to install SL first, is there?
All you need is a Lion USB installer...
If you really want that SL installed first, it sounds like the drive is not reading the disk too well, which isn't too unusual.
And, another good job for a USB flash drive.
insert your SL DVD in another Mac, and use Disk Utility to Restore the SL installer to an 8GB USB flash drive. That will work, and likely will give you a faster install for SL than the DVD will...
All you need is a Lion USB installer...
If you really want that SL installed first, it sounds like the drive is not reading the disk too well, which isn't too unusual.
And, another good job for a USB flash drive.
insert your SL DVD in another Mac, and use Disk Utility to Restore the SL installer to an 8GB USB flash drive. That will work, and likely will give you a faster install for SL than the DVD will...
i dont have another mac and i cant get access to any other macs at work, now when i insert the disc while in windows it launches the bootcamp setup and i was able to install the drivers just fine
Well, sure, the SL installer DVD has Boot Camp drivers on the disk.
That's just transferring files, and doesn't mean that you can boot from the disk, and run the OS X installer.
Make sure the surface of the SL DVD is clean, without visible smudges or scratches.
Try running a DVD cleaning disk - the kind with brushes imbedded in the disk. Let it spin for a few seconds, then eject.
Try blowing into the DVD slot with a can-o-air, too.
If you are able to boot to the SL DVD, the hard drive will need to be erased by removing the partition. (Unlikely that you will be able to keep the Windows partition if no OS X partition exists now)
Make sure the drive is formatted GUID, and prepared with the default MacOS Extended (journaled) format.
OTOH, that iMac would be a pretty good Windows PC, if you really need Windows, and don't particularly need OS X. Now that you have all the hardware drivers, Win 7 should work OK.
That's just transferring files, and doesn't mean that you can boot from the disk, and run the OS X installer.
Make sure the surface of the SL DVD is clean, without visible smudges or scratches.
Try running a DVD cleaning disk - the kind with brushes imbedded in the disk. Let it spin for a few seconds, then eject.
Try blowing into the DVD slot with a can-o-air, too.
If you are able to boot to the SL DVD, the hard drive will need to be erased by removing the partition. (Unlikely that you will be able to keep the Windows partition if no OS X partition exists now)
Make sure the drive is formatted GUID, and prepared with the default MacOS Extended (journaled) format.
OTOH, that iMac would be a pretty good Windows PC, if you really need Windows, and don't particularly need OS X. Now that you have all the hardware drivers, Win 7 should work OK.
OK, you don't need another PC (good for you
)The Mavericks USB installer will work with your 2007 iMac...
You need at least 2 GB of RAM installed (and that's the same even if you could install 10.7)
Your 2007 iMac can go to either 4 or 6GB maximum RAM.
And, you still need to wipe the hard drive, as the Windows-only partition will likely not be formatted properly to install OS X without erasing the drive first.
You can do the erase from the opening window (choose Disk Utility) when you boot to the Mavericks installer.
OK, you don't need another PC (good for you
The Mavericks USB installer will work with your 2007 iMac...
You need at least 2 GB of RAM installed (and that's the same even if you could install 10.7)
Your 2007 iMac can go to either 4 or 6GB maximum RAM.
And, you still need to wipe the hard drive, as the Windows-only partition will likely not be formatted properly to install OS X without erasing the drive first.
You can do the erase from the opening window (choose Disk Utility) when you boot to the Mavericks installer.
sorry if that sounded rude i am exhausted after working today and driving 1.5 2 hours home
, anyway yeah i have picked up alot of semi old dell laptops so i got plenty of windows machines lol, i had some spare 2 gig sticks that i added to the imac so now it has 4 gigs total, i havent tried running the 10.9 usb since i installed the 4 gigs so maybe this time it will show up, but so far i was only able to get it to show up in transmacEdit I restarted and held down the option key and the only drive that shows up is the main hdd the usb does not show up
Edit 2 ok 10.9 won't work I put the serial into apples website and its a late 2006 model, I'm still gonna try snow leopard atleast
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