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User profile for user: ajsorprano
ajsorprano Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

2011 Macbook A1278 not updating past Lion

Hello, I have a 2011 Macbook that I got secondhand from a friend. I was trying to upgrade it to High Sierra since this is the newest OS it supports now. However it says Software is up to date when I try to do it from the Apple symbol. None of the OS's downloads show up in the App store. In fact most things in the App Store only load with a question mark. Things I have done: It had no hard drive so I put a new one in. There are no time machine back ups. Have tried internet downloads of previous OS X software's but they download with no image (just the basic hard drive look) and when I install, it happens very fast and upon restart nothing changes with the OS system. When I redownloaded Lion in recovery mode it shows two hard drives, the one I made "Macbook" and another one that says "Untitled" and that it is locked. Could this be why I can't update? Any suggestions for updating completely?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 1, 2022 7:53 AM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,572 points

Posted on Feb 6, 2022 2:08 PM

Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R (best to use a wired Ethernet connection to eliminate any hard to troubleshoot WiFi issues). If macOS 10.12.6+ was never installed on this laptop, then this option likely will not work.


How did you create the bootable macOS 10.13 High Sierra USB installer? Here is an Apple article with the official instructions (other methods may not work):

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support


Do you get the error "requires a software of 10.8 or later to work" when booting from the macOS 10.13 USB installer? If so, then perhaps you may first need to install macOS 10.11 El Capitan before attempting to upgrade to macOS 10.13. You can find a link to the macOS 10.11 installer as well as instructions for creating a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer in the previously linked Apple article. You will need to use a Mac from 2008 - 2015 (perhaps some 2007 models will also work) in order to extract the downloaded El Capitan .pkg file to extract the installer into the Applications folder where you can then create a bootable USB installer. Read the above Apple article carefully.


While booted from the macOS installer launch Disk Utility and erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). With a macOS 10.13 installer you will need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. The physical drive is usually identified by the make & model and should be the top most item on the left pane of Disk Utility.


If you happen to boot an older macOS installer (10.10 or earlier), then the procedure would be slightly different to erase the physical drive by partitioning and formatting it instead:

https://www.owcdigital.com/assets/support/support-formatting-and-migration/Mac_Formatting_6-10.pdf


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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,572 points

Feb 6, 2022 2:08 PM in response to ajsorprano

Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R (best to use a wired Ethernet connection to eliminate any hard to troubleshoot WiFi issues). If macOS 10.12.6+ was never installed on this laptop, then this option likely will not work.


How did you create the bootable macOS 10.13 High Sierra USB installer? Here is an Apple article with the official instructions (other methods may not work):

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support


Do you get the error "requires a software of 10.8 or later to work" when booting from the macOS 10.13 USB installer? If so, then perhaps you may first need to install macOS 10.11 El Capitan before attempting to upgrade to macOS 10.13. You can find a link to the macOS 10.11 installer as well as instructions for creating a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer in the previously linked Apple article. You will need to use a Mac from 2008 - 2015 (perhaps some 2007 models will also work) in order to extract the downloaded El Capitan .pkg file to extract the installer into the Applications folder where you can then create a bootable USB installer. Read the above Apple article carefully.


While booted from the macOS installer launch Disk Utility and erase the whole physical drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). With a macOS 10.13 installer you will need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. The physical drive is usually identified by the make & model and should be the top most item on the left pane of Disk Utility.


If you happen to boot an older macOS installer (10.10 or earlier), then the procedure would be slightly different to erase the physical drive by partitioning and formatting it instead:

https://www.owcdigital.com/assets/support/support-formatting-and-migration/Mac_Formatting_6-10.pdf


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2011 Macbook A1278 not updating past Lion

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