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Reinstalled Snow Leopard and want to upgrade debacle

L

Lynsey Lewis

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 29, 2020
20
1
Hello, My HDD died and I just installed a SSD. Used the factory supplied Snow Leopard and app install disks fine.
I want to upgrade to at least Mavericks but am getting my derriere kicked. This is a mid 2010 11,3 iMac 27", A1312 model.

I did the Leopard combo update. Tried installing Sierra, no go. Tried installing El Capitan, no go. Tried installing Mavericks from Isoriver and that was denied because it was deemed unapproved by the computer!

I do not know where to go from here. I cannot leave it as is because Safari is making the Bing homepage unusable. Safari crashes on startup half the time, I cannot put in my husband's solitare app because it wont work on anything less than the Mavericks OS.

I am at a loss here, very po'd, I been at this since 1o this morning and would be most grateful for any and all advice. THanks, Lynsey
 
Create a bootable installer of Mavericks or whatever OS you want to go to and install that from scratch instead of using the Snow Leopard disc. Otherwise, if you want to upgrade in place you need to start further down, with Lion (Mountain Lion might also work). Can't do an upgrade install directly from Snow Leopard.

To make a bootable installer just download the relevant OS like it sounds you already have, and use the "createInstallMedia" command that's in the app bundle's Resources folder to make a USB Flash drive bootable with the installer
 
Lynsey Lewis said:
What I downloaded had no resources folder. Back to square one.
Click to expand...

Right click the .app bundle, select "Show Package Contents". Inside the Contents folder that'll be revealed is the Resources folder. To run the createInstallMedia program and create a bootable installer, drag the program into Terminal. If you hit enter without any arguments it'll show usage, but it's something like
<path to createInstallMedia> --volume <path to the volume you want to erase and make bootable installer> --application <path to .app installer>
 
Lynsey Lewis said:
Hello, My HDD died and I just installed a SSD. Used the factory supplied Snow Leopard and app install disks fine.
I want to upgrade to at least Mavericks but am getting my derriere kicked. This is a mid 2010 11,3 iMac 27", A1312 model.

I did the Leopard combo update. Tried installing Sierra, no go. Tried installing El Capitan, no go. Tried installing Mavericks from Isoriver and that was denied because it was deemed unapproved by the computer!

I do not know where to go from here. I cannot leave it as is because Safari is making the Bing homepage unusable. Safari crashes on startup half the time, I cannot put in my husband's solitare app because it wont work on anything less than the Mavericks OS.

I am at a loss here, very po'd, I been at this since 1o this morning and would be most grateful for any and all advice. THanks, Lynsey
Click to expand...
Your computer should be able to use Internet Recovery, which will allow you to install High Sierra. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
 
I downloaded InstallMacOSX.dmg, when I click on that I get an install package. I am using a Macbook to download this stuff onto a flash drive.
 
Lynsey Lewis said:
What I downloaded had no resources folder. Back to square one.
Click to expand...
If you downloaded the "[OSX] Mac OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks ESD.dmg" from that site, all you need to do is open the image, which will mount the "OSX Base System" where you can find the "Install OS X Mavericks" app. Right-click on that installer app, and "Show Package Contents". Open the Contents folder, and you will see the Resources folder that you need to find (and the "createinstallmedia" file)! You use THAT to make a bootable USB installer.
 
I have decided to go straight to Sierra. I will start with erased and formatted SSD and follow your directions. Again, wish me luck.
 
Sierra is a much better choice than Mavericks (which I consider to be one of the worst Mac OS releases ever).
 
So. I attempted to open the image as directed. I cannot open it on my Macbook, i get an error saying the disk image could not be opened because the resource was busy.

Am I supposed to open this image on the dead iMac instead? I am installing the disk image to the SSD on the iMac at the moment...
 
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So...I find a copy of Sierra on an Apple page, download the whole thing only to get an error message that the download is damaged and cannot be used to install the OS. This just gets better and better.......
 
Lynsey Lewis said:
So...I find a copy of Sierra on an Apple page, download the whole thing only to get an error message that the download is damaged and cannot be used to install the OS. This just gets better and better.......
Click to expand...
You might have to go to El Cap before Sierra. Try MacDaddys disk creator and make a USB drive. I know there's other ways to make a drive I just like that app.
 
I got a sierra image to open. I got to the installer package app and right clicked it. There is no "show package contents" by right clicking. I formatted a usb and got the Terminal to copy the installation files to the usb now...fingers crossed.
 
Last edited:
Lynsey Lewis said:
I got a sierra image to open. I got to the installer package app and right clicked it. There is no "show package contents" by right clicking. I formatted a usb and got the Terminal to copy the installation files to the usb now...fingers crossed.
Click to expand...

At this point I'm honestly just confused about what's going on for you. The app bundle didn't have a show package contents, yet you somehow used the Terminal to copy over the installer data to the flash drive. I hope it works out for you but I've no clue what steps you've taken here
 
You and me both. I used the drive to boot up to the Install Mac OS Sierra and told it to install the OS and got an error message....this copy is damaged. I am not far from dragging this ..... out and driving over it. Here we go again.... Guess Sierra is not in the cards....gonna try something else. OK, try again....to get around the damaged copy error I went into Terminal and changed the date to 2011 and lo and behold........it is installing.......we shall see.
 
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Fishrrman said:
Sierra is a much better choice than Mavericks (which I consider to be one of the worst Mac OS releases ever).
Click to expand...
I don't know, Catalina is giving Mavericks a run for that dubious honor (worst OS release ever).
 
Okie, dokie...that failed... signature error. So, I went and changed the date again. This time, to a date slightly after Sierra came out. Duh, I should have done that in the first place. No wonder it failed. Here we go again with another attempt. FYI Sierra came out 9/20/16. My birthday...hello karma.
 
Hombre53 said:
I don't know, Catalina is giving Mavericks a run for that dubious honor (worst OS release ever).
Click to expand...

The way I remember it, Mavericks was really good and stable; The Snow Leopard of Lion and Mountain Lion if you will. But maybe I have bad memory. In any case; Spare a thought for OS X 10.0, the world's slowest Cheetah
 
Any way you slice it, all better than the Windows NT world from which I made a living. Halfway through the second install attempt...
 
casperes1996 said:
Forgot Tiger there. And if we go even further back, System 7. And in the future, based on how good beta 1 is, Big Sur. - Also quite liked Mojave, although I have had some annoying and never resolved issues with it
Click to expand...
Tiger was OK but not as good as SL. Prior versions of Mac OS were junk to me. Always hated the non-UNIX Mac OS.
 
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