Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ihatemy2011macbookpro

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 7, 2023
19
0
i know its possible to run high sierra on a 2008 but would it be possible to just put a hard drive in that already has high sierra on it in? i have a hard drive with high sierra on it and some other files from my 2011 mbp 15" that died and its a larger drive too so it would work much better for me
 

theMarble

macrumors 65816
Sep 27, 2020
1,019
1,496
Earth, Sol System, Alpha Quadrant
That would not work as the 2011 runs High Sierra officially, while the 2008 requires a patcher.

Do you have a USB stick or external drive that you could copy your files over to?

If you want Sierra+ on a 2008, you are going to need to make a fresh USB install that has the dosdude1 HS patcher applied to it.
 

ihatemy2011macbookpro

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 7, 2023
19
0
honestly i dont mind too much if i lose the files on the hard drive as its mostly music i can redownload/ rip from cds. i mostly just want to have sierra so i dont have issues with the security certificates with websites and things like that. if i did the usb install of the patch would i be able to duel boot? also could you link a good guid for doing the dosdude1 patch? thanks man
 

Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,782
12,181
if i did the usb install of the patch would i be able to duel boot?
What OSes would you like to dual-boot? Usually, multi-booting macOS versions is no problem and very easy.

also could you link a good guid for doing the dosdude1 patch?

i know its possible to run high sierra on a 2008 but would it be possible to just put a hard drive in that already has high sierra on it in?
If you want Sierra+ on a 2008, you are going to need to make a fresh USB install that has the dosdude1 HS patcher applied to it.
After booting from the patched USB installer, it may be possible to apply the necessary post-install patches to an existing installation that came from another machine. I’ve never tried it though.
 

ihatemy2011macbookpro

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 7, 2023
19
0
No problem. You need two partitions on the HDD. Install 10.6.8 on one and High Sierra on the other.
sorry but i couldn’t figure it out. how to i do that partition? and what do i do from there. is there any advantage of having the older osX version anyways? like can it run anything that high sierra can’t?
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,749
4,572
Delaware
I have a 2008 iMac with Leopard and Monterey, and a 2010 iMac with Snow Leopard, El Capitan, and Monterey - so three boot partitions.
"How do you add more partitions?" Boot to your High Sierra installer. Open Disk Utility. Choose the drive, then click the partition tab. Add the partition, and make it whatever size you want (unless you want to simply split in half, so adding a partition will usually do that in the first step. Name the new partition something that you like (I don't advise using the name "Untitled for ANY hard drive, if you know what I mean...), then continue on with making the changes to the partitions.
You mentioned "Hard drive". I hope that you meant SSD. There's no reason any more to handicap your '08 MBPro with a spinning hard drive. (just my opinion :cool:)
When you have the partitions set up, continue on with installs of the systems.

And another possibility--You could also go with OpenCore patcher, which supports up to Ventura on your 2008 MBPro - if you should want to do that.
 

avz

macrumors 68000
Oct 7, 2018
1,828
1,895
Stalingrad, Russia
honestly i dont mind too much if i lose the files on the hard drive as its mostly music i can redownload/ rip from cds. i mostly just want to have sierra so i dont have issues with the security certificates with websites and things like that. if i did the usb install of the patch would i be able to duel boot? also could you link a good guid for doing the dosdude1 patch? thanks man
The beauty about the macOS High Sierra is that it is essentially supported by the hardware of both Late 2008 and 2011 Macs. For example I can boot from my patched High Sierra HDD on both: MBP9,2(Mid 2012) and MB5,1(Late 2008) without having to remove/add any patches.
 

ihatemy2011macbookpro

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 7, 2023
19
0
I have a 2008 iMac with Leopard and Monterey, and a 2010 iMac with Snow Leopard, El Capitan, and Monterey - so three boot partitions.
"How do you add more partitions?" Boot to your High Sierra installer. Open Disk Utility. Choose the drive, then click the partition tab. Add the partition, and make it whatever size you want (unless you want to simply split in half, so adding a partition will usually do that in the first step. Name the new partition something that you like (I don't advise using the name "Untitled for ANY hard drive, if you know what I mean...), then continue on with making the changes to the partitions.
You mentioned "Hard drive". I hope that you meant SSD. There's no reason any more to handicap your '08 MBPro with a spinning hard drive. (just my opinion :cool:)
When you have the partitions set up, continue on with installs of the systems.

And another possibility--You could also go with OpenCore patcher, which supports up to Ventura on your 2008 MBPro - if you should want to do that.
thanks for the help bro you’ve been very helpful! yes i meant hard drive :eek: lmao. i’m pretty sure for an ssd you need to take out the disk drive and i really don’t want to do that. the disk drive is the whole reason i still want a unibody mbp, as i use it for ripping lossless files off of cds, and i have a lot of dvds that i love to watch on laptops. external drives are annoying too.
 

bobesch

macrumors 68020
Oct 21, 2015
2,142
2,220
Kiel, Germany
i know its possible to run high sierra on a 2008 but would it be possible to just put a hard drive in that already has high sierra on it in? i have a hard drive with high sierra on it and some other files from my 2011 mbp 15" that died and its a larger drive too so it would work much better for me
An SSD-replacement for a spinning-drive is kind of mandatory to run (patched)Sierra/HighSierra/Mojave.
You can also install patched_Mojave, if you should prefer dark-mode.
As for Your pre-installed HS-drive: I'd recommend a clean install of a patched_HS/Mojave and migrate Your data.
A 500GB SSD would be a good choice for running a multi-boot-system.
Partitioning might look like this:
P#1.Patched_HS/Mojave (120G)
P#2.Data
P#3.SnowLeopard (for faster Speed and Rosetta-support) (60-80GB)
P#4.small Partition to hold the patched_HS/Mojave-Installer (16GB)
It's important to keep the order, if you want to delete/reintegrate partitions: deleting P#4 will add it to P#3, deleting P#3 will add it to P#2. But you cannot delete P#2 to make it part of P#3 etc.
If you want to keep compatibility use HFS+ file-systeme for all partitions. @dosdude1's patched macOS versions allow to keep HFS+ file-systems even for HighSierra and Mojave.
To get started prepare the SSD via external USB-connection (get a 10$ external USB3-case - it can hold the preexisting spinning-drive for backup-purpose later) and create the above 4 partitions.
P#1 + P#2 are basic and meant for the main macOS and your data. P#3 is the "add-on" additional SnowLeopard-OSX (that might be deleted and added to the data partition) and P#4 is the backup/recovery patched installer if something needs to be re-patched.
Run dosdude's patcher and install the patched_macOS-installer on P#4, so you'll always have a fast installer and a recovery on board.
If you already have a running SnowLeopard-system use CCC or SuperDuper to clone the system to P#3 (which should be partitioned the size, your actual SL-system has - but move all your data, that should be available on both SL and HS/Mojave to the P#2 data-partition first to free space on the SL-partition.
If you want a fresh install of SnowLeopard, skip the previous cloning-step. You may do that later. Just prepare that 60-80GB partition, which should be big enough. (Remember, that you cannot increase P#3 unless you delete and add P#4)
Install the SSD (only patched macOS-installer on P#4 is necessary) into your 2008MBP.
Boot from P#4 and install patched HS/Mojave onto P#1. Keep HFS+ file system for P#1 (if you choose APFS you cannot access P#1 from your SnowLeopard-system)
After finishing patched_HS/Mojave installation and previous cloning of SL to P#3 your DualBoot-system is ready.
(if You skipped SL-Cloning You may now install SL onto P#3.

I've done this on both early and late 2008 MBP.
There should be at least 4GB RAM available even to run patched_Mojave.
Early2008MBP could be upgraded to 6GB RAM, the late2008MBP could be upgraded to 8GB of RAM, but make sure, if it's a late2008 model to have the last firmware update (MacBook Pro EFI-firmware-update 2.8), otherwise it won't be able to access the full 8GB RAM.

I've also tried OCLP Monterey and Ventura on a late2008 2,9GHz 15"MBP. Both need about 80GB for system and my basic software configuration.
OCLP_Monterey does work with some limitations (slower speed compared to Mojave, no Apple.Maps, no Apple-TV.App)
OCLP_Ventura refused to install.
So if you like to add OCLP_Monterey experience to your setting, You might add an 80-100GB partition between P#2 and P#4 and get the most maxed-out MultiBoot system.

@ihatemy2011macbookpro which 2008MBP-model do You have the early2008(silver keyboard) or late2008(black keyboard)?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Amethyst1
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.