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Wanted to upgrade my OS, but got nasty shock instead

T

thatkat

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 24, 2010
7
0
uk
I'm in the UK and have used my MacBook Pro 13 inch mid 2009 2Gb memory 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo since new.
I've been running Mountain Lion with a Bootcamp NTFS Windows XP partition for a good few years now.
Yes my machine is a relic of a bygone age. I was planning on upping the memory and swapping out the hard drive for a SSD in the near future once I'd wrapped my head round how. I had no intention of parting with it.

So to cut a long story short, I recently decided to at some point get Codeweavers Crossover and bin the Bootcamp, and also update my browsers, which meant that first I needed to update to at least Yosemite and possibly El Capitan. But it seems only the latest OS is available in the App store.

Any advice here would be appreciated. If anyone can direct me to threads as to how I can achieve the seemingly impossible task of upgrading my operating system I would be grateful. Or even tell me the best search terms to use, as I've been drowning in search results and not getting very far. I have little technical knowledge but I'm a willing learner.
Thank you.
 
Last edited:
thatkat said:
I'm in the UK and have used my MacBook Pro 13 inch mid 2009 2Gb memory 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo since new.
I've been running Mountain Lion with a Bootcamp NTFS Windows XP partition for a good few years now.
Yes my machine is a relic of a bygone age. I was planning on upping the memory and swapping out the hard drive for a SSD in the near future once I'd wrapped my head round how. I had no intention of parting with it.

So to cut a long story short, I recently decided to at some point get Codeweavers Crossover and bin the Bootcamp, and also update my browsers, which meant that first I needed to update to at least Yosemite and possibly El Capitan. But it seems only the latest OS is available in the App store.

Any advice here would be appreciated. If anyone can direct me to threads as to how I can achieve the seemingly impossible task of upgrading my operating system I would be grateful. Or even tell me the best search terms to use, as I've been drowning in search results and not getting very far. I have little technical knowledge but I'm a willing learner.
Thank you.
Click to expand...
The latest operating system you can run on that computer is El Capitan. You can upgrade directly to that from Mountain Lion. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206886
 
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Thanks so much chrfr and Fishrrman :) I really appreciate your help.

That's the closest I've got yet... up until you giving me those links I'd not even been able to find any operating system besides Mojave, at least in the UK app store.

So I logged in and tried to download El Capitan. I get to the OS X El Capitan screen, click on 'get' and get the following message:
'Software Update Required' To make changes to your payment information you need to upgrade your mac to the latest version of mac OS'
Then when I click either button, 'cancel' or 'learn more'
I get another message:
'We could not complete your request. There was an error in the app store. Please try again later'.
So no joy as yet.
 
Well, I realize you're in the UK and things may work differently there.

But... if you conclude that you can't download El Capitan directly from Apple, there are (cough, choke) "other places" from which you can get it.

Be aware that there are sellers on ebay who will sell you a USB flashdrive with a copy of the OS installer of your choice "pre-installed" on it. Just plug in the flashdrive, reboot, and you can install that way.
 
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Perhaps you can “update” your account billing through iTunes? Have you got any other Apple devices?
 
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It's all OK now thank you!

KALLT - I have updated my payment info at appleid.apple.com, which is a website that tbh I had completely forgotten existed, and that seems to have done the trick because El Capitan is now downloading.

I must admit I went white when I couldn't find a version at the UK app store to download, I honestly thought Apple had stopped supplying downloads of earlier operating systems, and I am very grateful for the links to the US app store version.

Next in line is to up my RAM with the two 4 GB modules I have on order, and swap out the existing hard drive for a 500 Gb SSD, and replace the battery, all of which Mr Postman should deliver next week.

I'll do some research on how exactly to proceed with all of that, and see how I get on, as it'll be the first time I've ever tried to modify mac innards. I may be back with more questions...

Thanks again for being there, and for all the helpful suggestions :)
 
El Capitan installed now but my iPhoto is blocked and won't function :(

The version I had/have is 9.2.3, and came from the original Snow Leopard install disks which I still have.
I understand iPhoto is no longer supported, but if anyone knows of a workaround to get it up and running again I would be very very grateful.

I've been thinking about having a bootcamp partition with Snow Leopard, as I always loved that operating system and I have a few programs I'd like to put to use again which stopped working after I upgraded to Mountain Lion. I can't recall the difference between the Snow Leopard iPhoto and the subsequent version in Mountain Lion, so if I am able to set up a Snow Leopard iPhoto version, would I be able to load my saved-before-the-el-cap-update iPhoto library into the Snow Leopard version?
 
Ugh. Been doing some research and it seems I cannot install my version of Snow Leopard on a bootcamp partition using the current OS X.
Still trying to find a way of getting my iPhoto back up and running. I've got a time machine backup still of my Mountain Lion setup, if anyone knows of how I could possibly use this a a means of updating the iPhoto so it can somehow be used in my El Cap please do let me know. Thank you!
 
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