So, I picked up an early 2006 iMac for nothing that I want to use for my cabin but without iCloud, it is useless to me. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB and swapped out the processor to a 1.86 Core 2 duo that came in some late 2006 iMacs. The computer is upgraded to the minimum specs for Lion. I installed snow leopard without problems so I wouls have the App store. The app store tells me that I cannot install lion on my machine because it it too old. So I had a brilliant Idea - install Lion on a hard drive in a USB cradle with a brand new iMac then use that drive to install into my 2006 imac and boot from there. I tested in in the cradle first and set the computer to boot from the USB drive and I get a "no" symbol where the Apple logo should be during start-up. I am now at my whits end and ready to give up. I know others are successfully running Lion on upgraded early 2006 iMacs. I have the Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB RAM and is running 64 bit. any suggestions or am I just out of luck? I am positive I read a post in a forum awhile back on how someone pulled it off. I really want this thing to work, so any help is very much appreciated. thank you.
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Installing Lion on a 2006 iMac upgraded to C2D & 2GB RAM
- Thread starter Fresh-city
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Right after my original post I deleted the plist that does the check for compatibility a bang, I was running Lion on an early 2006 iMac. its is possible!
Runs flawless. I upgraded the 1.86 cpu again to the 2.0 and am still running just 2GB of RAM and it is awesome. I don't really run any resource hogging apps so its perfect for a second computer that I picked up for $50. Rarely ever get the spinning beach ball of death.
