Where can I still get Yosemite (and maybe El Capitan)?

[Tennyo]

Hey everyone.

I have a refurbished 2011 MacBook Pro currently running Mavericks. I mainly use it for graphic stuff (I have Adobe CS6). My roommate and I used to play World of Warcraft and she wants to get back into it, so I thought I would download it and check out what's been going on with Legion.

Well apparently WoW is going to be ending support of 10.9 soon, and the game won't run anymore. When I launched it, it was stuck on a loading screen for forever and would not do anything. So I figure I should upgrade to a newer version of OSX. I can't do Sierra because apparently I have to do Yosemite and El Capitan first, however, neither of these are on the app store anymore.

What can I do?

Thanks in advance!

 

[DeltaMac]

...
I can't do Sierra because apparently I have to do Yosemite and El Capitan first, however, neither of these are on the app store anymore.

What can I do?
...

Well, you really don't have to "do Yosemite and El Capitan first,"
There's no real reason you can't go straight from Mavericks to Sierra, unless you just don't want to do that.
Keep in mind that if you have a spinning hard drive, Sierra is going to be somewhat draggy, compared to Mavericks.

Also, you can still get El Capitan - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206886

 

[Tennyo]

Well, you really don't have to "do Yosemite and El Capitan first,"
There's no real reason you can't go straight from Mavericks to Sierra, unless you just don't want to do that.
Keep in mind that if you have a spinning hard drive, Sierra is going to be somewhat draggy, compared to Mavericks.

Also, you can still get El Capitan - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206886

Awesome, thanks for the link!

When I tried to download Sierra I got an error message that said, "Sierra cannot be installed on this device." I thought MacBook Pros from 2009 and later were compatible, and mine is from 2011. Maybe it's not compatible?

El Capitan seems to be working. I'm going to try installing it now.

 

[Tennyo]

Well, El Capitan is now installed on my laptop, however when I went to the app store it still gave me the error message saying that Sierra can't be installed. Oh well. This will do for now.

Thanks!

 

[DeltaMac]

What model of MacBook Pro do you have?
Is it a 2011 model - or did you purchase it as a refurb in 2011, but it is actually a bit older?
Just to double-check, go to About This Mac (under the Apple menu), what model does that show?
Click on the System Report button in that window, then tell us what you have for "Model Identifier" under Hardware Overview.
Final question: How much memory do you have installed?

 

[Tennyo]

I've only had this laptop for about maybe two years now, if even? So I definitely didn't buy it in 2011.

Buuuuuut I am seeing in the about section it says "Mid 2009" It's never displayed the year before until I did the upgrade. But the place I bought it from claimed it was 2011... blah I guess it's time to complain.

I have 8 gigs of ram. 1 TB hard drive.

Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,3

WoW works perfectly with El Capitan so I suppose that is enough.

 

[DeltaMac]

OK!
That makes sense now. You have a 15-inch, Mid 2009 MacBook Pro.
The latest system that you can run is the one that you have now, El Capitan.

Couple of random thoughts about that: You are maxed out for RAM memory at 8GB.
You COULD replace the hard drive with an SSD, for a noticeable boost in performance in most things that you might do.
Your MBPro did not ship originally with a 1TB drive, even as an option, so you have upgraded that at some point.
Your model was sold new until April 2010, then maybe another 2 years as a factory refurb direct from Apple.
If you bought maybe two years ago, I suppose that you bought this from some place other than Apple.

 

[Tennyo]

Yeah, I bought it from a place that specializes in refurbishing computers. They claimed this was a 2011...

Oh well, either way, thanks for your help!

 

[jknorton]

moving question to "thread"

 

[jknorton]

I too am looking for a download location for Yosemite. My iMac is running 10.8.5, Mountain Lion. I have a large investment in some music software which is only supported up to 10.10.5 version of Yosemite. Can anyone point me to a good download site? Thanks

 

[DeltaMac]

Hmmm...
There's always eBay - sample - or search for Yosemite USB. Take your choice...

Or, search for a torrent, using your choice of a torrent download app. (You'll have to do that yourself )

 

[Appleuser4life60077]

Hmmm...
There's always eBay - sample - or search for Yosemite USB. Take your choice...

Or, search for a torrent, using your choice of a torrent download app. (You'll have to do that yourself )

you could go to your local Apple store and ask them to install 10.10 like i did today, i have an early 2011 macbook pro that was having kernel panics and graphics issues with sierra since it is one of the models with the graphics card issue. so far knock on wood it is ok, no kernel panics since noon today with 10.10.5