Installing new OS on mid 2007 Macbook A1181 - problems!

[Edwin_Shedwin]

Hello board,
I am a long-time Mac user, but not experienced with anything too technical.
I have a mid 2007 white Macbook (this one: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...-core-2-duo-2.16-white-13-mid-2007-specs.html) that I have owned from new. I am trying to install an OS on this machine, and have hit problems!
I have the original grey install discs, which state that they are for Mac OS 10.4.10.
The hard drive is blank, and the machine will boot into the installer from the disc. However, on the third screen, where the installer asks the user to select a disc on which to install the OS, no options are given, ie the installer is not finding my hard drive.
When I then go into Disk Utility and try to re-format and partition the hard drive, the hard drive shows up, but Disk Utility reads the capacity as 7.3tb, when in fact it is 1tb. When I attempt to re-format, Disk Utility returns an error, 'input/output error'.
I have removed the hard drive, put it in another enclosure and checked and re-formatted it on another Mac. I have also tried the installer with a different hard drive in the 2007 machine, with the same results.
The machine was running fine with 10.6 until the reinstall was attempted.
My question is how to go about troubleshooting this.
I wonder if the following may be relevant:
-the optical drive has not been 100% reliable for a number of years, and the discs are old. Could this be a factor?
-the motherboard was replaced by Apple in 2011. Could Apple have installed a slightly later version of the motherboard? I note that after November 2007, new models shipped with 10.5 not 10.4. Could a slightly later motherboard cause my problems trying to install 10.4?
-I believe that Apple say that this the hard drive on this model is upgradable to 500gb; mine has a 1tb rotational HD, and worked fine in this machine for years. Is this relevant in any way?
All and any suggestions gratefully received! Screenshots of installer attached.
Many thanks

 

[Amethyst1]

When I attempt to re-format, Disk Utility returns an error, 'input/output error'.

Can you bring up Disk Utility's log when this error appears? It should be an option in the Window menu. This may show a little more information.

An "I/O error" usually indicates a problem with the drive in question, the SATA cable that connects the drive to the motherboard, or the SATA controller on the motherboard.

I have removed the hard drive, put it in another enclosure and checked and re-formatted it on another Mac.

And that was OK?

Can you put the hard drive in the enclosure again, but connect it to the 2007 MacBook and run Disk Utility from the 10.4.10 install discs again? Is it recognised correctly on the MacBook if it's in the enclosure? If so, that points to a problem with the motherboard (its SATA controller) or the SATA cable that connects the drive to it.

I have also tried the installer with a different hard drive in the 2007 machine, with the same results.

You mean it also read as 7.3 TB, with an I/O error showing up trying to erase it? That also points to a motherboard or cable problem, not a hard drive problem.

-the optical drive has not been 100% reliable for a number of years, and the discs are old. Could this be a factor?

While not impossible, I wouldn't guess that this causes issues trying to erase the hard drive.

the motherboard was replaced by Apple in 2011. Could Apple have installed a slightly later version of the motherboard? [...]

That's possible but it will still be of the same generation and thus be compatible with 10.4.10. And even if the mainboard was one of the "late 2007" or "early 2008" generation that shipped with 10.5: I used to own an early 2008 MacBook and 10.4 did run on it, apart from graphics acceleration.

I believe that Apple say that this the hard drive on this model is upgradable to 500gb; mine has a 1tb rotational HD, and worked fine in this machine for years.

The machine should™ have no problem dealing with drives larger than 2 TB even, so 1 TB is fine.

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

Can you bring up Disk Utility's log when this error appears? It should be an option in the Window menu. This may show a little more information.

An "I/O error" usually indicates a problem with the drive in question, the SATA cable that connects the drive to the motherboard, or the SATA controller on the motherboard.


And that was OK?

Can you put the hard drive in the enclosure again, but connect it to the 2007 MacBook and run Disk Utility from the 10.4.10 install discs again? Is it recognised correctly on the MacBook if it's in the enclosure? If so, that points to a problem with the motherboard (its SATA controller) or the SATA cable that connects the drive to it.


You mean it also read as 7.3 TB, with an I/O error showing up trying to erase it? That also points to a motherboard or cable problem, not a hard drive problem.


While not impossible, I wouldn't guess that this causes issues trying to erase the hard drive.


That's possible but it will still be of the same generation and thus be compatible with 10.4.10. And even if the mainboard was one of the "late 2007" or "early 2008" generation that shipped with 10.5: I used to own an early 2008 MacBook and 10.4 did run on it, apart from graphics acceleration.


The machine should™ have no problem dealing with drives larger than 2 TB even, so 1 TB is fine.

Thank you very much for the feedback and suggestions. I will run through them and post the results.

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

Can you bring up Disk Utility's log when this error appears? It should be an option in the Window menu. This may show a little more information.

An "I/O error" usually indicates a problem with the drive in question, the SATA cable that connects the drive to the motherboard, or the SATA controller on the motherboard.

There is no log available, the option is greyed out - see photo.

Can you put the hard drive in the enclosure again, but connect it to the 2007 MacBook and run Disk Utility from the 10.4.10 install discs again? Is it recognised correctly on the MacBook if it's in the enclosure? If so, that points to a problem with the motherboard (its SATA controller) or the SATA cable that connects the drive to it.

I have done this. I have two identical 1tb drives, I bought them together, one has been used as an external storage volume and the other has been the HD in my 2007 Mac. So I ran this test once, then swapped the disks over and ran it again.
Disk Utility booted from the install disk recognises both disks when attached externally, and will erase and partition them without problem. DU correctly recognises the disks as around 1tb (931.5gb) when attached externally. After erasing, partitioning, and swapping, DU still sees the internal disk as 7.3tb. I attach the DU 'disk info' pane on the internal disk.

So, are we looking at the SATA cable, SATA bus, or motherboard? This machine was running fine for years, and was then sitting for about five years before I tried to resurrect it. What would the next step be?
Many thanks!

 

[Amethyst1]

So, are we looking at the SATA cable, SATA bus, or motherboard? This machine was running fine for years, and was then sitting for about five years before I tried to resurrect it. What would the next step be?

Since the disks show up correctly externally, I'd suspect the issue to be internal to the MacBook. The easiest thing to replace is the hard drive cable. If that doesn't fix it, the problem may be in the chipset's southbridge (where the SATA controller is located), which is a chip on the motherboard. Replacing that wouldn't be straightforward.

Can you boot another version of Mac OS X (Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion) on the MacBook and see if they behave differently, just in case the problem happens to be unique to Tiger (10.4)?

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

Since the disks show up correctly externally, I'd suspect the issue to be internal to the MacBook. The easiest thing to replace is the hard drive cable. If that doesn't fix it, the problem may be in the chipset's southbridge (where the SATA controller is located), which is a chip on the motherboard. Replacing that wouldn't be straightforward.

The one query I would have with this thesis is that the machine was running fine a couple of weeks ago, and though it had been sitting for a few years, before that I was using it regularly for about five years, so if something has gone wrong with hardware, it has happened since I tried to reinstall the OS, which seems like a bit of a coincidence.

Would it be worth opening the machine and making sure that the cable is connected properly?

Can you boot another version of Mac OS X (Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion) on the MacBook and see if they behave differently, just in case the problem happens to be unique to Tiger (10.4)?

I only have the 10.4 install disks, I might have a look on ebay and see if I can find some later disks. I did create some bootable Linux USB drives, but this machine wasn't recognising them as bootable. I am not expereinced with this, so I'm not sure why the machine wasn't finding the bootable USB drives. I will think about the easiest (and cheapest!) way to try a different OS.

Many thanks!

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

Not sure if this is significant... After reading around, I wondered if I could use the install discs to install the OS on an external drive, and from there somehow troubleshoot the internal issues.

The installer booted from the optical drive picked up the external drive as an option no problem, and after about an hour installing, the machine restarted on its own. It did not boot up again, so thinking that it needed to be told to boot from the external drive, I restarted and held down option.

The boot options were the external drive and the optical install disc. On selecting the external drive, first the Apple appears with the spinning wheel, then a circle with a line through it and the spinning wheel, then a message saying I need to restart, saying 'unable to find driver for this platform: "ACPI" '. Picture of this screen attached! Is this significant? Many thanks!

 

[Amethyst1]

The one query I would have with this thesis is that the machine was running fine a couple of weeks ago, and though it had been sitting for a few years, before that I was using it regularly for about five years, so if something has gone wrong with hardware, it has happened since I tried to reinstall the OS, which seems like a bit of a coincidence.

I agree it's a bit weird. The fact that the disks are recognised correctly by 10.4 if they're in the enclosure means it's not a general incompatibility with the particular hard disks and 10.4 (which would be quite odd). Since the machine was running fine at some point, it's not a general incompatibility with the disks and the SATA controller either. It's always possible something has gone wrong with hardware.

Would it be worth opening the machine and making sure that the cable is connected properly?

Yes, definitely.

I will think about the easiest (and cheapest!) way to try a different OS.

Don't tell anyone ( ) but you can find a copy of Snow Leopard here. The second download on that page is the retail version. Burn that to a double-layer DVD or to a USB flash drive, boot the MacBook with the hard drive installed internally and see if it behaves the same as with Tiger.

[...] the Apple appears with the spinning wheel, then a circle with a line through it and the spinning wheel, then a message saying I need to restart, saying 'unable to find driver for this platform: "ACPI" '. [...]

This can be caused by several things, such as:

• trying to install a version of Mac OS X on a machine it isn't compatible with (probably not relevant in your case)
• a corrupt installation caused by problems with the
  • hard disk
  • install discs
  • memory (RAM)
  • optical drive

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have made some progress, but I have a feeling that the news is not good...

I installed OS 10.4.10 to an external drive from the install disks, and the machine is now booted and running (very slowly) from the external drive. Running Disk Utility on the HDD from there comes back with exactly the same issue, 7.3tb disk when it is in fact 1tb, and returning 'input/output' error when I try to format.

Apart from checking the SATA cable connection, is there anywhere I can go from here?

 

[Amethyst1]

I installed OS 10.4.10 to an external drive from the install disks, and the machine is now booted and running (very slowly) from the external drive.

This rules out the optical drive or install discs.

Apart from checking the SATA cable connection, is there anywhere I can go from here?

You can check using a newer version of Mac OS X (Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion will run on your MacBook). Alternatively, you can try booting Windows or Linux (from a CD/DVD if USB booting doesn't work) and see if they also have problems with the drive; if so, this would also point to a hardware problem.

One random thought that just entered my mind is that the hard drive in question uses 4096-byte sectors but emulates 512-byte sectors for compatibility with older OSes. But if Tiger weren't able to deal with that, things wouldn't work when the drive is in the enclosure either.

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

This rules out the optical drive or install discs.

You can check using a newer version of Mac OS X (Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion will run on your MacBook). Alternatively, you can try booting Windows or Linux (from a CD/DVD if USB booting doesn't work) and see if they also have problems with the drive; if so, this would also point to a hardware problem.

One random thought that just entered my mind is that the hard drive in question uses 4096-byte sectors but emulates 512-byte sectors for compatibility with older OSes. But if Tiger weren't able to deal with that, things wouldn't work when the drive is in the enclosure either.

I will do that. Forgive me my ignorance, but if there is already an OS running (10.4.10), I can simply install a later OS, such as 10.7.5 from within the running OS, provided the DMG file is the full install version not an upgrade - is that correct?

 

[Amethyst1]

Forgive me my ignorance, but if there is already an OS running (10.4.10), I can simply install a later OS, such as 10.7.5 from within the running OS, provided the DMG file is the full install version not an upgrade - is that correct?

This works for Lion since it was distributed as a download. But I’ve never tried running its installer on Tiger.
The Leopard and Snow Leopard installer require the Mac to have started from the install medium. A mounted DMG isn’t sufficient.

 

[rampancy]

What would help confirm things is if you tried another hard drive with the MacBook. If the other hard drive works fine with the MacBook, then the fault may very well lie with the 1TB drive. Disk Utility's consistent wonkiness with the hard drive is also a telling sign.

Have you tried the 1TB in another Mac?

 

[Amethyst1]

What would help confirm things is if you tried another hard drive with the MacBook.

Have you tried the 1TB in another Mac?

I have removed the hard drive, put it in another enclosure and checked and re-formatted it on another Mac. I have also tried the installer with a different hard drive in the 2007 machine, with the same results.

 

[MysticCow]

8P4112 models will need a 10.4.9 restore disc.

8R3025 and 8R3032 models will need a 10.4.10 restore.

You can also create a 10.7 installer and boot from there. The max official OS is 10.7.5.

 

[rampancy]

Heh. In my own defense, I was thinking about actually trying the hard drive inside another Mac and running the installer. But if it works in an enclosure with another Mac it should be fine.

All in all, it looks like there's something -- perhaps somehing in the drive's firmware? -- that the 10.4.10 installer doesn't like, since the OP said that the drive and Mac worked fine running 10.6. The incorrect reporting of the drive's capacity within Disk Utility run in the 10.4.10 install disk suggests that to me too.

This works for Lion since it was distributed as a download. But I’ve never tried running its installer on Tiger.
The Leopard and Snow Leopard installer require the Mac to have started from the install medium. A mounted DMG isn’t sufficient.

From my own experience and Apple's own documentation, you have to upgrade a Mac to 10.6.6 to use the 10.7 downloadable installer. On several occaisions I've tried extracting the InstallESD.dmg file within the installer and burning it to create a standalone install DVD but the installation never successfully worked for me.

 

[Amethyst1]

All in all, it looks like there's something -- perhaps somehing in the drive's firmware? -- that the 10.4.10 installer doesn't like, since the OP said that the drive and Mac worked fine running 10.6. The incorrect reporting of the drive's capacity within Disk Utility run in the 10.4.10 install disk suggests that to me too.

The drive is correctly recognised by 10.4.10 as well if it's in the enclosure though:

Disk Utility booted from the install disk recognises both disks when attached externally, and will erase and partition them without problem. DU correctly recognises the disks as around 1tb (931.5gb) when attached externally.

To me, this suggests there's something wrong with the SATA cable or the MacBook's SATA controller. Still, it's quite a weird issue!

On several occaisions I've tried extracting the InstallESD.dmg file within the installer and burning it to create a standalone install DVD but the installation never successfully worked for me.

I think I managed to install Lion in VMware by booting from the InstallESD.dmg file but that didn't involve a DVD.

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

This works for Lion since it was distributed as a download. But I’ve never tried running its installer on Tiger.
The Leopard and Snow Leopard installer require the Mac to have started from the install medium. A mounted DMG isn’t sufficient.

Would a full install be possible like this, ie from 10.4? OR would this still only be an upgrade?

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

After leaving things for a few days, it might be a good moment to recap:-

-Mac OS 10.4.10 installer from install disks do not properly pick up the internal HDD: the installer doesn’t find the disk at all, and Disk Utility reads it as 7.3tb capacity when it is actually 1tb capacity, and cannot format it

-an identical HDD behaves in exactly the same way when switched out; both units behave perfectly when in an external enclosure, and can be read and formatted by Disk Utility on the 10.4.10 install disks

-when the machine is booted from the 10.4.10 install disks, Disk Utility does find an external USB drive and is able to format it, and is able to install the OS on the external USB drive, which the machine can then be booted from and runs

-I have not been able to boot from a bootable USB installer. I have created three Linux installers, Xubuntu 21.10, PopOS 21.10 and System Rescue 9.01; all of these are recognised by the boot menus on my later macs (2015 Macbook Pro, 2018 Macbook Pro), none of these appear in the boot menu on the 2007 Macbook. I have also created bootable installers for Mac OS 10.5.4 and 10.6.3 (10.6.3 from here

Don't tell anyone ( ) but you can find a copy of Snow Leopard here. The second download on that page is the retail version. Burn that to a double-layer DVD or to a USB flash drive, boot the MacBook with the hard drive installed internally and see if it behaves the same as with Tiger.

...) which the 2007 Macbook does recognise at the boot menu stage, but cannot install, finishing with the circle with a line through it, which apparently means, ‘that … [the] startup disk contains a Mac operating system, but it's not a version or build of macOS that your Mac can use’ (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210901). I do not know why this would be the case. It should be stated that all the Mac OS installers I have are unofficial downloads, and all the bootable USB drives have been made with BalenaEtcher.

-I have removed and re-fitted the SATA cable, which has made no difference. The area around the end of the SATA cable which attaches to the HDD itself was pretty dirty, and there appears to have been some liquid ingress around here, but the connections themselves looked fine.

Conclusion(s):

The methodical approach would still be i) try the machine with a later version of Mac OS, to see if this makes any difference. I understand that there were significant changes after 10.4, though what this means in practice I have no idea; then ii) if this doesn’t help start looking at hardware issues, which could be the SATA cable or something on the logic board, the significance being that the first is an easy fix, the second not so much.

So the immediate problem is why I have not been able to boot from a bootable USB installer. Is this an avenue where I could productively continue to devote resources? Is BalenaEtcher a reliable approach?

Looking at other options down the road, it seems that sets of the grey install disks for 10.6 go for around €20 on ebay, there is someone selling bootable USB drives of 10.7.5 for €10, and a brand new SATA cable from China is around €10 shipped.

As the machine is running (just!) from an external drive, are there any diagnostic tools which are compatible with OS 10.4 which might help? I looked into SMART utility, but support for 10.4 expired a long time ago.

Thanks again!

 

[Amethyst1]

Would a full install be possible like this, ie from 10.4? OR would this still only be an upgrade?

Assuming you can boot the MacBook from the 10.5/10.6/10.7 install medium, you can perform a full installation.

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

Out of interest, in this thread, in a similar situation Tiger did not recognise an internal HDD properly whereas Leopard did: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3296026

 

[Amethyst1]

Out of interest, in this thread, in a similar situation Tiger did not recognise an internal HDD properly whereas Leopard did: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3296026

The thread postulates “Advanced Format” (4-KB rather than 512-byte sectors) is the culprit, which your drives also uses. This doesn’t explain why everything works fine when the drives are in the enclosure though — unless the issue only shows if the drive is installed internally.

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

The thread postulates “Advanced Format” (4-KB rather than 512-byte sectors) is the culprit, which your drives also uses. This doesn’t explain why everything works fine when the drives are in the enclosure though — unless the issue only shows if the drive is installed internally.

Many thanks! Any clues as to how to troubleshoot the way my machine recognises the bootable USB, but can't complete the process?

 

[Amethyst1]

I have not been able to boot from a bootable USB installer. I have created three Linux installers, Xubuntu 21.10, PopOS 21.10 and System Rescue 9.01; all of these are recognised by the boot menus on my later macs (2015 Macbook Pro, 2018 Macbook Pro), none of these appear in the boot menu on the 2007 Macbook.

The 2007 MacBook has a 32-bit EFI firmware; these Linux distributions probably expect a 64-bit EFI firmware. You need to modify the USB installer to make it bootable on Macs with a 32-bit EFI firmware.

I have also created bootable installers for Mac OS 10.5.4 and 10.6.3 [...] which the 2007 Macbook does recognise at the boot menu stage, but cannot install, finishing with the circle with a line through it, [...] It should be stated that all the Mac OS installers I have are unofficial downloads, and all the bootable USB drives have been made with BalenaEtcher.

A circle with a line can also mean it cannot find or access the drive it's supposed to boot from, or that something has gone wrong when creating the USB installer.

Did you create the USB installer using BalenaEtcher on Windows or macOS?

If you've been using macOS, I'd suggest trying to restore the 10.5.4 or 10.6.3 DMG to the USB drive using Disk Utility's Restore feature instead. Before using it, make sure the USB drive is partitioned using the "GUID Partition Table" scheme and only contains one big partition formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".

Then, double-click the DMG to mount it and use the "Mac OS X Install DVD" volume as the source and your USB drive's partition as the target.

Looking at other options down the road, it seems that sets of the grey install disks for 10.6 go for around €20 on ebay, [...]

Grey discs are machine-specific and will not install on your MacBook unless modified, which would again require you to burn the modified installer onto a DVD or USB drive. If you're looking to purchase something, go for a retail copy of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard which will install on any compatible Mac. The retail disc features a picture of a snow leopard in front of a white background.

 

[Edwin_Shedwin]

The 2007 MacBook has a 32-bit EFI firmware; these Linux distributions probably expect a 64-bit EFI firmware. You need to modify the USB installer to make it bootable on Macs with a 32-bit EFI firmware.

This is useful information, thank you!

Did you create the USB installer using BalenaEtcher on Windows or macOS?

I used mac OS. I have a 2015 Macbook Pro running Big Sur 11.6.5 and a 2018 Macbook Pro running Monterey 12.3.1

If you've been using macOS, I'd suggest trying to restore the 10.5.4 or 10.6.3 DMG to the USB drive using Disk Utility's Restore feature instead. Before using it, make sure the USB drive is partitioned using the "GUID Partition Table" scheme and only contains one big partition formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".

Then, double-click the DMG to mount it and use the "Mac OS X Install DVD" volume as the source and your USB drive's partition as the target.

I did attempt using Disk Utility's 'restore' feature and was not successful. I do not recall the exact error, but I can try again and keep a proper record. I have learned that bootable drives always need to be GUID, single partition and MAC OS Extended (journaled), so I believe that part is under control.

Grey discs are machine-specific and will not install on your MacBook unless modified, which would again require you to burn the modified installer onto a DVD or USB drive. If you're looking to purchase something, go for a retail copy of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard which will install on any compatible Mac. The retail disc features a picture of a snow leopard in front of a white background.

Again, very useful information, thank you! In that case, I'm curious about how machine specific the grey disks are, because as you may remember, my machine does not have its original hardware: the Display/LCD panel, camera assembly and bracket, logic board, magsafe board, topcase and keyboard, display bezel, and battery were all replaced (free!) by Apple in 2011.

In any case, thank you again for the help. I will work through this and report back!