2009 Macbook

[sparker781]

I have a 2009 Macbook that I bought off Craigslist for $200, probably too much. Got minimal specs (120GB hard drive), 2GB of RAM, and Mac OS X 10.5. The issue I am having is that the person gave it to me as is, no install discs or anything and it was still registered to him. I am trying to do a fresh install of the OS however I can sign into the mac store and when i try and continue the install it says that item is temporary unavaible. I cannot move forward from this. I can't get into recovery. I did format the drive and aside from buying a new disc from Apple, I am not sure of any way around this.....HELP I am a windows guy so my experience with mac is very limited.

Thanks

 

[Intell]

Purchase a Snow Leopard disc from Apple. You can reinstall 10.6 with than, then update to a newer version of Mac OS X from that through the App Store.

 

[BrettApple]

$200 is what I payed for mine. Same model and specs when I got it.

Do you have any friends/family with access to a Mac? If you do, it's pretty easy to use DiskMakerX to make a flash drive with the OS X installer to start fresh.

Just grab it from the App Store under the purchased section, use DiskMakerX, boot from the drive on the MacBook, clean install and you're good to go.

I would suggest upgrading to 4GB RAM and an SSD though. I did this to mine and it flies! See here.

Of course, it helps that I already had an installer (also have 10.6 DVD) and spare RAM. So I only had to pay for the SSD. But still, very capable machines!

If you are going to keep it stock, I would highly recommend what Intell is suggesting. Snow Leopard is by far the fastest on 2GB of RAM and a 5400 RPM HDD. Plus you get a physical disk.

 

[sparker781]

So...

All I need to do is purchase the Snow Leopard from the Apple website, and I can boot with the disc? There's nothing else to do? Okay I will give that a shot. I will order the disc tonight and hopefully it'll get here in the next week. Being in Boston, we're gonna get whollapped with more snow

 

[Altemose]

What model 2009 MacBook is it? Once you get the Snow Leopard disk you will be able to update to 10.6.8 and subsequently gain access to the Mac App Store where you can download and install newer versions of OS X.

 

[sparker781]

Thanks All

SO with that said. I've ordered the disc, now in terms of SSD's...Is it easy to swap out the drives? I have been trying to find directions online to no evail.....Also can you max this puppy out?

Thanks.

 

[Altemose]

SO with that said. I've ordered the disc, now in terms of SSD's...Is it easy to swap out the drives? I have been trying to find directions online to no evail.....Also can you max this puppy out?



Thanks.

Yes. You only need to remove the L-bracket in the battery compartment (3 screws) and slide the hard drive out.

 

[sparker781]

Thank You

I wanted to thank you all for the assitance to get this bad boy up and running....I was able to install the new OS with the disk as you all suggested. Now I am running into yet another problem....I can login fine, i've updated as I've said however I get message there's another update and it starts the process, downloads the update then it just sits there installing the update, so it says...I get a blank screen with no confirmation of it doing anything. Not sure what the issue could be....Anyone care to throw some ideas out?

Thanks