My poor sick macbook

[B S Magnet]

I purchased the MAC from eBay with all the software installed by former owner. Not knowing much about Mac but urgently needing one for a degree course, I wasn't even aware that Apple had this stupid rule about their software not being updateable or transferable.

I’d like to help. I have a couple of questions I’ll need for you to answer first:

1. Have you confirmed whether the hard drive inside is an HDD or an SSD?
2. Is there must-have software on there which you will lose (on account of starting fresh, from scratch, with a complete re-format)? In the end, this might end up being a necessary step, but hopefully this can be avoided.
3. How’s your battery life? (See if you can find coconutBattery put on there by the last owner, or download a copy of 3.6.8 for High Sierra.)

Answering these completely will help me be to able to help you out, as I’m able.

I have owned both early and late 2011 A1278 MBPs, continuously, since 2011 (the base model early 2011 and the top-end late 2011), so I’m very much at home with what they’re capable of. [Notwithstanding the Radeon dGPU issue of the 15/17-inch models, which has a couple of workarounds, the A1278 is, logically, identical to the A1286 and A1297 models of the same vintage; the dGPU workarounds mentioned may be found on two pinned posts in this forum.]

With the correct hard drive (you will need an SSD* if you’re planning to run any macOS build which defaults to an APFS file system — basically High Sierra, onward, as running those on HFS+, on a spinner, is an exercise in masochism); ample RAM (plan on/budget for bumping yours from 8GB to 16GB which, mercifully, is an affordable move nowadays); a working battery (this is a requirement, see ** below); and the right sequence of steps to follow, you’ll find this to be a capable system — even with an OCLP-patched Mojave or Catalina (and possibly higher).

That said, me being me (which is to say: I’m a longtime advocate of the incredible stability and robustness of Snow Leopard), OS X 10.6.8 is where I will probably be starting you on this step-by-step journey of recovering and getting your MBP up to pace on the OS you’ll be wanting to use as your daily driver, whether that’s High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, or even Monterey.

Let’s take this one step at a time.

---

* I’m not sure what other retailers do business in the UK (which is where I think you might be located), so take this only as a starting point for planning: a reliable, affordable SSD — one I can confirm works well — is the Western Digital Blue SSD. If you can only budget for the minimum, there is a 250GB version available for £36 and a 1TB version for £54 on Newegg right now. You can probably do even better than that with another retailer or, if things are super-tight, look around on Craigslist, Gumtree, or local swap shops/recyclers. [Ordinarily, I wouldn’t recommend picking up a used SSD, because you can’t really know its wear/usage history until after you connect it and test it with something like SMARTreporter, but in a pinch, or as a holdover until you’ve got some scratch, this ought to do.]

** Apple’s Intel laptops, in absence of a working battery (even one which reports “Service required” but still holds a charge is a “working battery”), will downclock the system automatically to 1.0GHz, irrespective of which model you use. [For some perspective, the slowest clock speed of even the earliest Intel Mac in existence is 1.83GHz.] If your MBP is running on a dead or missing battery, there’s nothing you can do to really speed it up. So making sure you have a functioning battery is top priority for system performance-based troubleshooting.

Do you think I have hundreds of pounds to rebuy stuff already installed and bought in good faith?

Again, you’ll need to figure out the software you can replace and the software you cannot. It’s entirely possible some of the older stuff, given this is a 2011 unit, has fallen into the grey realm of abandonware. As said before, let’s take this one step at a time.

 

[Macno]

I have a Time machine backup.
The hard drive is HDD
The battery does not work, it doesn't charge and won't run unless power connected.
From serial number it is an A1286.
I don't really care too much about any software installed except Logic Pro X.

Right now, I would simply like to be able to have a working Recovery partition, then be able to disable SIP, then to switch off Radeon graphics card. Once this is done, I can determine if this is a motherboard fault and noit worth doing any more.

I am reasonably confident that the last attempt put back the recovery partition, but is has a blank name. I need to give it a name and don't know how.

 

[B S Magnet]

I have a Time machine backup.

OK. Good. You have a Time Machine backup. Keep that handy, as you may need to move stuff from it over to your new setup.

The hard drive is HDD

OK. That is your first, moderate bottleneck for slowness, but…

The battery does not work, it doesn't charge and won't run unless power connected.

…this is your major bottleneck and your foremost priority on speeding yours up to something you can actually use.

Even if you can’t spring for a new replacement battery right this second (which is legit), try to look around local swap shops/recyclers for, say, a broken 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro with the battery still inside, even as that battery might be heavily used (any A1286 between the mid-2009 and mid-2012 models use the same A1321 battery). If/once you find one, verify that it still holds a charge (sometimes, there may still be enough in there for the battery indicator LEDs to light up when pressing the “test” button, even if the rest of the computer is dead). I’ve found working batteries from completely dead unibody MBPs, which I’ve then harvested to use in my own, working MBP, when I couldn’t spring for a new-in-box or OEM replacement.

From serial number it is an A1286.

Already ahead of ya:

I don't really care too much about any software installed except Logic Pro X.

OK. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Getting your system up and running to speed is priority #1.

Right now, I would simply like to be able to have a working Recovery partition, then be able to disable SIP, then to switch off Radeon graphics card. Once this is done, I can determine if this is a motherboard fault and noit worth doing any more.

This is where you might be putting the cart before the horse.

It’s also where you’ll want to pick up a cheap SSD/used SSD (which will go into the MBP and stay there). Meanwhile, you’ll want to take out the HDD and again, turning to the swap shops/electronics rummaging/etc., find a USB to SATA adapter. They’ve been around for about 20 years and all do the same thing: they let one connect a SATA drive to any computer with a USB port. If you can’t find a used one locally or know anyone with one (from whom you can borrow for a fortnight), Aliexpress have them for as little at £3–5. They get the job done, and they‘re good to keep around as one of those tools for future situations like this.

Why this route? Because with the SSD you’ll be putting inside the MBP, you’ll be starting fresh — with a fresh, GUID-partition schemed formatting. Beforehand, though, we’ll need to use that SATA-to-USB adapter to prepare the SSD first, before you do the physical drive swap.

From there, depending on how we get there, the first partition on your SSD will be HFS+ (for throwing on 10.6.8, before letting a High Sierra installer, from within 10.6.8, let you set up an APFS partition for it to boot and, as needed, for updating High Sierra to Catalina). There will be some partition handiwork which will need to happen, but one step at a time.

I am reasonably confident that the last attempt put back the recovery partition, but is has a blank name. I need to give it a name and don't know how.

The recovery partition on Lion-and-later OS X/macOS builds isn’t meant to have a volume name like your system volume. In fact, they’re really not supposed to be tinkered with outside the OS X/macOS installer. Consequently, their “name” will always be the device/partition location they’re situated (like /disk1s4, the disk being 1 and the partition being #4 on disk 1).

The thing about post-SL OS X/macOS builds is Apple made this whole thing a lot more complicated for the end user if the user dips into low-level drive partitions for maintenance purposes. This is why I advocate for starting with OS X 10.6.8 (well, you’d be using the 10.6.7 MBP 2011 installer image, available online, before bumping to 10.6.8): the system is all contained in one partition — one you can name/rename (and there’s no recovery partition nightmare to start with).

Next, then we can focus on adding a partition with Disk Utility, within the “macOS [name] Installer.app” for the version of macOS you’re aiming to put on there. As-is, that target will be High Sierra. Again, one step at a time.

 

[Macno]

Thank you very much for your time and help.

So I need to source out a battery somehow. Cheapest new is £50 on eBay. Some spares or repairs but they never comment on the battery. May be a while. Is there a way to cut open the battery and replace some of the cells?

I read somewhere that you can remove the battery but it cuts performance by 50%

The cheapest SSD for 500Gb I can see is £21 AMAZON

That is a tough amount to find spare at the moment, and if the motherboard turns out to be faulty, would be money down the drain for me. I know there is a definite problem with the graphics card, all sorts of display glitches and the last time I had a small problem with the battery, the local Mac shop said they thought this was definitely an issue.

 

[Amethyst1]

I read somewhere that you can remove the battery but it cuts performance by 50%

If the battery is dead (from your description it may well be) this also happens, so you may have nothing to lose.

 

[B S Magnet]

Thank you very much for your time and help.

So I need to source out a battery somehow. Cheapest new is £50 on eBay. Some spares or repairs but they never comment on the battery. May be a while. Is there a way to cut open the battery and replace some of the cells?

On these, no. They are custom Li-polymer layers specific to that battery’s design.

Even if they were of the older style — wherein a series of 18650-sized batteries were joined in series (I think it’s in series nope, series and parallel both) — there are a mess of other hazards and challenges one must reckon with, as well as the equipment and supplies to assemble it all safely (not least of which: a multimeter, kapton tape and, optimally, some kind of spot-welder).

Some folks can pull it off. I tried with an iBook clamshell battery, and well, let’s just say I narrowly avoided a thermal runaway with one of the eight cells (the above video, in fact, probably just pointed out why, after years of wondering what I did wrong!) and now I have an unfinished project with only seven, non-damaged 18650 cells and an Book which lives life completely on the mains.

I read somewhere that you can remove the battery but it cuts performance by 50%

This was what I was describing to you earlier. The Intel-based Mac laptops, with battery removed/dead, downclocks, or slows, the Mac to a minimal speed, making the system infuriatingly slow to use. That’s why getting some kind of working battery — even heavily a used one which still holds a charge — is better than nothing at all, in terms of the Mac returning the system to its rated clock speed.

The cheapest SSD for 500Gb I can see is £21 AMAZON

True. Bear in mind a couple of things. No, three things:

1) If data on your drive is important to you (as it should), you’ll want to do your homework and to avoid unknown brands of SSDs whose internals haven’t been be inspected or tested by either the computing community or a testing clearinghouse site, such as TechPowerup. Some of these off-brand SSDs can end up being a lot of smoke and mirrors.

2) Some non-brand SSDs do, however, tend to work ok for basic use, as tested by folks on the PowerPC Macs and Early Intel Macs forums. Have a good read through this thread. On there, folks, myself included, have had success with off-brand SSDs for replacing an old HDD spinner from the likes of Netac, Zheino, and Dogfish. My PowerPC Macs all have SSDs from the likes of Dogfish and iRecdata (both of which are brand whose retail supplies have dwindled in the last couple of years).

3) One caveat, however: even the best of these off-brand SSDs tend not to have what is called a DRAM cache — basically, a tiny bit of on-board RAM inside the SSD itself. The DRAM cache helps to prevent read/write bottlenecks and to give the SSD controller a little more breathing room to allocate, prepare, and write/read from the flash storage modules.

For this reason, especially if you’re working on stuff like multitrack audio or non-linear video, it’s generally advisable to stick with a branded SSD which is known already to have a DRAM cache built in. For Western Digital, what I mentioned earlier, the WD Blue series has one on board and they are less costly than their WD Red SSDs (and far less so than the WD Black, which these days use a protocol which won’t work on your MBP anyhow). The WD Green, however, their “budget” SSD, is the cheapest precisely because it’s the one without a DRAM cache. When using it for a system drive or for read/writing lots of data, such as with music/video editing, this will cause ugly, inopportune bottlenecks.

Moreover, the WD Blue and Red SSDs, last I looked, came bundled with a 5-year warranty, whereas some of the off-brand models come with as little as 90 days and up to a year (sometimes, I’ll also see 2-year warranties).


So keep all this in mind.

That is a tough amount to find spare at the moment, and if the motherboard turns out to be faulty, would be money down the drain for me. I know there is a definite problem with the graphics card, all sorts of display glitches and the last time I had a small problem with the battery, the local Mac shop said they thought this was definitely an issue.

Again, we have a couple of pinned discussions on this forum to rectify/work around the faulty-by-design Radeon dGPU to let the MBP use the Intel iGPU exclusively. And as you’ll be working with mostly audio (and maybe watch a video on YT), this isn’t going to be the thing to keep you from getting good use out of your MBP.

Once more: take it one step at a time and plan ahead.

 

[Macno]

If the battery is dead (from your description it may well be) this also happens, so you may have nothing to lose.

Battery removed. It was all swollen, no wonder the trackpad wasn't working. This has transformed the performance to slow from extremely painful. I can now do things reasonably quickly on the machine. But that graphics card is clearly duff, glitching everywhere. I'm hopeful that just switching it off and maybe putting in a decent battery puts this machine back in full use with reasonable response times.

 

[Macno]

Again, we have a couple of pinned discussions on this forum to rectify/work around the faulty-by-design Radeon dGPU to let the MBP use the Intel iGPU exclusively. And as you’ll be working with mostly audio (and maybe watch a video on YT), this isn’t going to be the thing to keep you from getting good use out of your MBP.

I've had a look and they all require SIP to be disabled. Hence my need for the utilities in the recovery.

Is there another way to turn SIP off? It boils down to this:
I cannot see my recovery partition when holding the power button down(volume is blank). Internet recovery already shown before does not allow wireless passwords. Option R doesn't work, R doesn't work.

So IS there a way to give an Apple Boot a name?

The glitch: attached.

 

[Queen6]

As an long tern owner of the Late 15" 2011 MBP my advise is back up your data, wipe the drive, install High Sierra and use gSwitch to manually control the dGPU. If the dGPU is damaged things will likely get worse and the fixes more complex.

This MR thread has a wealth of information & advice for the 2011 15"/17" MBP's. My own is a 100% stock Late 15" and runs flawlessly, however it's dGPU is largely restricted. With a notebook of this age I tend ensure it's reasonably before putting any money into one. A new battery & SSD drive will help, but is not the root cause. As for a battery there is script to limit the battery charge for High Sierra which helps a lot. I keep mine at 50% and will hopefully it will keep it going as it looks to have significantly slowed the degradation.

If an Early 2011 you have more options as they are easier to deal with as you can use NVRAM commands without risk of loss of functionality. It's possible to run newer versions of macOS on the 2011 (up to Mojave I believe), however there is strict process and there can be trade offs.

Q-6

 

[Macno]

As an long tern owner of the Late 15" 2011 MBP my advise is back up your data, wipe the drive, install High Sierra and use gSwitch to manually control the dGPU. If the dGPU is damaged things will likely get worse and the fixes more complex.

This MR thread has a wealth of information & advice for the 2011 15"/17" MBP's. My own is a 100% stock Late 15" and runs flawlessly, however it's dGPU is largely restricted. With a notebook of this age I tend ensure it's reasonably before putting any money into one. A new battery & SSD drive will help, but is not the root cause. As for a battery there is script to limit the battery charge for High Sierra which helps a lot. I keep mine at 50% and will hopefully it will keep it going as it looks to have significantly slowed the degradation.

If an Early 2011 you have more options as they are easier to deal with as you can use NVRAM commands without risk of loss of functionality. It's possible to run newer versions of macOS on the 2011 (up to Mojave I believe), however there is strict process and there can be trade offs.

Q-6

Thank you for this. Please tell me how to wipe drive and reinstall. Usb drive does not load when it has the installer set.

 

[B S Magnet]

I've had a look and they all require SIP to be disabled. Hence my need for the utilities in the recovery.

Yah. And this is why procuring a second hard drive (an SSD) and that three quid SATA-to-USB adapter will be needed.

Is there another way to turn SIP off? It boils down to this:
I cannot see my recovery partition when holding the power button down(volume is blank). Internet recovery already shown before does not allow wireless passwords. Option R doesn't work, R doesn't work.

What I’m envisioning for fixing your predicament:

1) Find a fresh SSD, affordably. Acquire that SATA-to-USB adapter.
2) Hook up that new SSD with SATA-to-USB adapter to your Mac.
3) Open Disk Utility.
4) Format that SSD with GUID partition scheme. Make the first partition an HFS+ one, however big will be, but the second partition at the end, will be 10GB (more than enough space to duplicate the OS X 10.6.6/10.6.7 install image you will be using.
5) Once duplicated, open the MBP, swap the hard drives, putting in the SSD, taking out the HDD, and booting into OS X 10.6.6/10.6.7 installer.
6) Install 10.6.6/10.6.7 onto the first, big partition on the SSD.
7) After install, run the 10.6.6/10.6.7 updaters to bring it up to 10.6.8 with all security updates.
8) In 10.6.8, open Disk Utility and remove the second partition of the SSD (with the 10.6.6/10.6.7 installer DVD image).
9) Still in 10.6.8, download the El Capitan install dmg. Launch it and follow instructions to install it over Snow Leopard or use Disk Utility in the installer to partition your SSD with a second partition (however large you want, but leave maybe 50GB around for the Snow Leopard partition — the first partition — as Snow Leopard will be kind of a future insurance policy in case of problems involving the OS on the second partition).
10) After El Capitan installs and you boot into El Capitan, run all the updaters from the App Store to bring it up to 10.11.6.
11) Now, booted and running from 10.11.6, grab the High Sierra installer. To do this, follow the stackexchange steps provided by the the answer (supplied by the same person who asked the question, but the runner-up question, to use a python command in Terminal, might be more straightforward.)
12) Follow the steps in the InstallESDDmg.pkg to install High Sierra onto your second SSD partition. This will replace 10.11.6 with 10.13.6. Let it re-partition that second partition to APFS (which it may do automatically anyway).
13) After High Sierra install is done and you’ve booted into the fresh copy of High Sierra, you will be able to boot into its recovery partition to disable SIP, as desired.
14) Now, re-boot into High Sierra on your SSD. From here, connect your old HDD (with the broken High Sierra) with the SATA-to-USB adapter. That drive should now show up on the desktop. Retrieve everything from that drive you need and copy it to your home directory on the SSD.
15) From High Sierra on your new SSD, you should then be able to download and run the patch in the pinned Early Intel Macs forum (i.e., this forum) thread to disable to dGPU, the Radeon, so that your system, going forward, runs the system only on iGPU, the Intel HD 3000.
16) At this point, just keep the old HDD around in case you need to, later on, connect to it to retrieve or re-retrieve something from it. Don’t toss it or erase it.

So IS there a way to give an Apple Boot a name?

No.

The glitch: attached.

View attachment 2201084

Yup.

 

[Queen6]

Thank you for this. Please tell me how to wipe drive and reinstall. Usb drive does not load when it has the installer set.

Been a spell, and last this 2011 was clean installed was at the factory. Believe you need to boot off a USB drive and use the tools option to run Disk Utility to entirely wipe the drive. USB wont run the installer as the OS on the primary partition is higher iteration than High Sierra.

To be very honest it's been too long for me to really advise exactly, as last I need to fully reset was with a 2014 13" MBP. Even Apple's own support documentation should show how too. If not hopefully a member will be able to help who has more recent experience of downgrading the OS, equally is possible on these older Mac's.

As I see it you have the wrong OS on the wrong machine, improperly installed. So you have to get back to High Sierra and then troubleshoot the dGPU. Should be able to source a High Sierra installer and and install directly from USB on a clean drive. Never done much more with my 13" 2014 MBP. As said I'd get it at least working as is or you may very well be wasting money.

Primary concern to me is the state of the dGPU Early 2011's are easier to deal with Late are more complex and likely need to be HW modded to retain full functionality; brightness, sleep, shutdown. TBH as a student I think you'd be better served with a more known reliable notebook as the 2011 15" MBP is notorious for failing, equally I whish you luck in getting it back up and running.

Q-6

 

[B S Magnet]

Been a spell, and last this 2011 was clean installed was at the factory. Believe you need to boot off a USB drive and use the tools option to run Disk Utility to entirely wipe the drive. USB wont run the installer as the OS on the primary partition is higher iteration than High Sierra.

Wiping the HDD in there is not advised, because there are still data on that which need to be retrieved.

A second drive, like a fresh SSD, will need to be involved.

 

[Queen6]

Wiping the HDD in there is not advised, because there are still data on that which need to be retrieved.

A second drive, like a fresh SSD, will need to be involved.

That's why you back up the user data, It's unlikely to be of significant volume. The apps you can DL once High Sierra is installed. My opinion is to prove the notebook is viable as the member is reporting artefacts on the display and on a very tight budget.

Once the dGPU is damaged it tends to be a one way trip. If an Ealy 2011 model the NVRAM fix will work, the Late model will very likely incur issues and needs HW modding.

The answer will lie here somewhere in the 3K posts and there is much more cast across MR...

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ntel-integrated-gpu-efi-variable-fix.2037591/

My own 2011 15" has served me and members of the family well. It returned back to me DOA, took a couple of weeks to clean up the SW image as my daughter loaded whatever onto it. Yet I'm leary of putting money into it as closing on 12 years old.

Obvious question why did I keep it? They are all problematic and potential timebombs so seemed unreasonable to dump it on someone else. Ironically it's seen of other Mac's, equally I suspect one in the minority as it has good silicon and to this say doesn't throttle...

Q-6

 

[Macno]

Ok, well I'm going to see what I can do with this great advice.
Still got messages:
prt2@fa200000: appleusbhostport::disconnect: persistent enumeration failures

Showing up every 1 second... easy to see in single user mode. Not even using usb.
Can't find any help online.

 

[B S Magnet]

Ok, well I'm going to see what I can do with this great advice.
Still got messages:
prt2@fa200000: appleusbhostport::disconnect: persistent enumeration failures

Showing up every 1 second... easy to see in single user mode. Not even using usb.
Can't find any help online.

Sometimes you just have to hard-shut off the system by holding the power button. This may be one of those things to do until you’re able to procure a second hard drive.

By the way, as I hadn’t done so before, the image you’ll need (for 10.6.7 [and second source], specific for the 2011 MacBook Pros), as archived online.

 

[posguy99]

I cannot see my recovery partition when holding the power button down(volume is blank).

This is an Intel Mac, so what does holding the power button down do, exactly?

 

[Macno]

This is an Intel Mac, so what does holding the power button down do, exactly?

Brings up available connected devices and an internet recovery option. Nothing else.
I have previously posted "I created a High Sierra install USB....not sure what it should be doing, but it read it, took ages and seemed to abort with progress bar at 90%. Tried twice."
Wireless option does not allow key entry, the field has a padlock.

 

[3166792]

@Macno I saw you mentioned that you removed the battery and that it was swollen. Please do take it to be recycled ASAP if you haven't yet. A swollen battery like that is an unpredictable fire hazard.

 

[Macno]

@Macno I saw you mentioned that you removed the battery and that it was swollen. Please do take it to be recycled ASAP if you haven't yet. A swollen battery like that is an unpredictable fire hazard.

Cheers.

 

[Macno]

Update: I managed to get hold of another hard drive. I did a Carbon-Copy-Clone copy of it. The machine boots from it.
I tried doing the partition thing with it and putting the 10.6.6 installer ISO in the partition - I just got a rectangle with a question mark. So I cloned original HD on to it.
I'll see if I can get 5) above done on the original HD.

p.s. the ISO wouldn't read so do I need to dome sort of extraction on it? I'm guessing yes, but don't fully understand.

 

[Macno]

Head scratching stuff:

1. Holding down the power button does not recognise any non OS hard drive. It's blank on 490gb and second partition has 10gb with the Snow Leopard ISO in it(post 36 above). This was tried with both disks. Just get the ? rectangle.

2. Holding down the button does not recognise the USB, I just get an EFI boot icon that does nothing - the USB has the iSO on it.

What am I doing wrong here? I've tried holding down the 4 keys for resetting NVRAM.

 

[Queen6]

You have to boot from the USB image and erase and merge the notebooks internal drive, all partitions then install Sierra/High Sierra. Problem being is that when Apple updates the OS it also tends to update the system firmware and that can result in complications when trying to revert such older notebooks.

Snow Leppard is too far back which I doubt will install, Sierra or High Sierra is what works best on the 2011's. TBH installing Catalina is asking for trouble on a 2011 unless you have a deep knowledge of the system and willing to work with it. Again the Catalina install potentially complicates and adds difficulty to getting the notebook into a reprogrammable mode.

I've owned my own 2011 15" since new, it's on High Sierra and it will stay indefinitely. I just added some security tools to bolster it which block all installs without admin consent including Apple. Barring the battery (down to 48% of capacity now) it remains 100% stock & reliable.

Too get the 2011 to boot off the USB drive you need to go back in time and look at Apple's resources for the period. Holding down the power button will do nothing for a 2011. You likely need to use a specific key combination, then it will recognise and boot from the USB.

These are old machines, TBH you would be far better served by a newer notebook so you can focus on your studies not waste time on the 2011. If your getting issues on the dGPU it's done, unless your willing to pick up the soldering iron or pay for service...

Q-6

 

[Macno]

You have to boot from the USB image and erase and merge the notebooks internal drive, all partitions then install Sierra/High Sierra. Problem being is that when Apple updates the OS it also tends to update the system firmware and that can result in complications when trying to revert such older notebooks.

Too get the 2011 to boot off the USB drive you need to go back in time and look at Apple's resources for the period. Holding down the power button will do nothing for a 2011. You likely need to use a specific key combination, then it will recognise and boot from the USB.

Cheers for this. It's not obvious to us Mac novices. I ran a converter to change the ISO to DMG then used TransMac on Windows pc, to convert it to the image. Still wouldn't work. I'm going to give it one more go with a newer image on a otherwise blank hard drive partition and a USB.

Macbook Intel 2011 say to hold ALT key, but it makes no difference, just holding the power does the same thing.

Then if this fails......I really think I'm just going to give in.

 

[Queen6]

Cheers for this. It's not obvious to us Mac novices. I ran a converter to change the ISO to DMG then used TransMac on Windows pc, to convert it to the image. Still wouldn't work. I'm going to give it one more go with a newer image on a otherwise blank hard drive partition and a USB.

Macbook Intel 2011 say to hold ALT key, but it makes no difference, just holding the power does the same thing.

Then if this fails......I really think I'm just going to give in.

As said go back to the fundamentals. You need to dig a little deeper...

Closing on 12 years young

Wipe the drive, ignore the rest. Boot off a Sierra or High Sierra USB image as per Apple's recommendations then install the OS. This is the only way to recover the Notebook.

You may need to follow the 2011 HW or the Catalina protocols depending on the firmware dependencies. This I dont know as I saw it as too much of a risk as the 2011 15"/17" are already timebombs that must be limited in operation.

Only time my 2011 15" is down is to check the battery for swelling and blow out the cooling solution annually. Then I power test it. CPU still doesn't throttle holding a solid 45 Watts. It's been up for years on end without any issue. Been our offline media server for over half a decade with 12 TB strapped to it.

So yeah is possible with a little care. Sadly if you cant get the MBP into a programable mode your done as OSX/macOS is very picky about this...

Q-6