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Reinstalling Lion on 2008 Mac problem

S

salty15

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 13, 2015
10
1
Hi all,

Please forgive me if I have posted this in the wrong thread or anything. I am a noob and have limited computer knowledge (apologies on this front also ...).

I have an old Mac that I am preparing to sell – a 2008 model that originally shipped with Lion. Following instructions online, I erased the hard drive and now need to install a fresh copy of Lion (or a later OSX, I don't mind, but I just need to install some kind of OS!). Judging by the look around the Internet I've already had, this is problematic because, as far as I can tell, Lion isn't available any more via the App store and when I go to install it from the window I get on my 2008 Mac, it simply says to try again later.

Again following advice on the internet, I then tried to create a bootable copy of Lion on a USB drive (following this: http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/08/make-a-bootable-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-installer-from-a-usb-flash-drive/). However, my current Mac runs El Capitan, and therefore has a version of Disk Utility that doesn't offer the 'Restore' function needed.

I'm therefore at a loss as to what to do next. I did find a thread discussing what to do using Terminal, but since I don't really know what I am doing and didn't really understand what the command lines specified would do, I didn't want to go copying and pasting lines into Terminal all willy-nilly.

Can anyone help me out? I'd just like to be able to get an operating system running on my old Mac. Thanks so much in advance.
 
Lion is still on the app store if you registered your "2008" Mac with your apple ID or you can use the disk that came with the lap top.
 
Thanks but when I try to log in to the app store, it accepts my login but then I get a screen saying try again later. I have done a Google search and others have had the same problem. There doesn't seem to be a way of downloading Lion via the app store this way.

Also, I should have mentioned that the DVD drive in the older Mac doesn't work. I need to somehow create that bootable flash drive, so if anyone could help me out with that, I'd be really grateful.
 
Minor point - 2008 Macs would have shipped new with Leopard (OS X 10.5.x), not Lion (OS X 10.7.x)
Lion did not ship on new Macs until late 2011

So, your Mac (whatever model it is) would have shipped with Leopard, including a Leopard restore DVD. THAT media would be fairly easy to copy to a USB flash drive.

I would suggest that a better version to put on a Mac that you are selling would be Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.x) which, after updating, would give your buyer easy access to the App Store, and they can get most any version of OS X that might interest them.
 
Tarek said:
Give Apple's Internet Recovery a shot because if you follow the instructions correctly, it should download and install Mac OS X Lion for you.
Click to expand...
Yes, but the OP apparently has a 2008 Mac of some kind. If that is true, then Internet recovery is not available. The Mac would need to be a 2010 model or newer for Internet Recovery to boot.
 
The sum of these answers is that 2008 Macs came with Leopard pre-installed and with installation DVDs. The latest version of Mac OS that can be run on it depends on which Mac it is. The best version to run on it probably depends on what Mac it is, also. Internet recovery isn't available on 2008 models so a manual install is required with either a disk or USB stick properly setup.
 
Thanks folks. Looks like I'll have to give in and take it to an Apple store. :(
 
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