Imac Late 2009 re:install

[mba1975]

Hi there

I bought an old late 2009 Imac via the danish second hand marked place "blå avis", the same as ebay I surpose.
The previous owner had used a cleaning application, which had erased a little to much, her user account and the entire HD, so the Imac is now only able to boot up with the disk utility screen, I believe it is called. I have attached a picture for clarification.

I have read some about various keycombinations to reset and re-install, but I haven't had much luck with any of those combinations.
I have also tried to re-install Mavericks via the 2nd option on the disk utility screen "re-install os x", but that does not work either, perhaps the Imac is still "apple id locked", to the previous owner, if that is possible. It was not properly reset and made ready for a new owner, since it was wiped/erased with a cleaning app. My own apple ID did not work, in any case.

Also I have tried to re-install via an USB and an org Snow Leopard DVD - but no luck either.

Any help and ideas are so very welcome - thank you in advance.

 

[Hombre53]

Have you re-formatted (macOS Extended Journaled) the hard disk via disk utility?

 

[DeltaMac]

Your 2009 is too old to boot and install with Internet Recovery, so that kind of steps will not work for you.

If you try the install from a Snow Leopard DVD, what exactly happens? Do you get an error message of some kind?

What version of OS X is on the USB drive that you tried?
When you try the install, do you get a blank password line (with a padlock symbol?)

I agree with Hombre53 - however, you need to boot successfully to either an external drive, or an installer DVD.
The screen that you show in your first post means that you are booting to the recovery partition, which is a partition on the hard drive. You cannot completely erase the hard drive while you are booted to a partition on that same hard drive. That is why you need either an external drive or a DVD installer to erase the drive completely (removing all partitions).

But, you should try using the recovery partition (from your first post) to reinstall the OS X system. You do need an internet connection to download the operating system files, which means you need to plug in an ethernet cable connected to your router - or connect to a wifi network that you know works. Then, you should be able to download (and install) the system.

 

[EugW]

Did you try to use Disk Utility from the USB installer you tried, to format the drive?

What OS do you want to put on it? I find that High Sierra is too slow on that machine with a hard drive, but with an SSD it runs great.

What are the specifications by the way?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Do you know exactly which model iMac it is?

 

[mba1975]

The precise version of the imac I purchased, I have pinpointed to be an iMac "Core 2 duo" 3.06 21,5"

 

[mba1975]

Model ID: imac 10.1
Model No.: A1311
Earliest supported OSX Snow Leopard
Max operating OSX High Sierra

 

[mba1975]

Info taken from macupgrades.co.uk;

SolderFix - Microsoldering Repair Service

Expert microsoldering repair work on electronic equipment and components. Solder Fix offers component level repair on a wide range of computer and electronic equipment.

www.macupgrades.co.uk

 

[mba1975]

I couldn't get it to start up from the usb be installer via the the keycombination on the keyboard. But the OSX I put on it was Maverick.

 

[mba1975]

Have you re-formatted (macOS Extended Journaled) the hard disk via disk utility?

Yes it is formatted in that way. When I try to reinstall on the main HD, I get the mesaage could not erase bussy.

 

[EugW]

What other Mac are you using? What did you use to make the USB installer? Are you sure you typed the right Terminal commands to make the USB installer?

 

[mba1975]

Do you know exactly which model iMac it is?

The precise version of the imac I purchased, I have pinpointed to be an iMac "Core 2 duo" 3.06 21,5"
Model ID: imac 10.1
Model No.: A1311
Earliest supported OSX Snow Leopard
Max operating OSX High Sierra

 

[mba1975]

What other Mac are you using? What did you use to make the USB installer? Are you sure you typed the right Terminal commands to make the USB installer?

I couldn't get it to start up from the usb be installer via the the keycombination on the keyboard. But the OSX I put on it was Maverick.

 

[mba1975]

I couldn't get it to start up from the usb be installer via the the keycombination on the keyboard. But the OSX I put on it was Maverick.

The usb was made on a pc.

 

[EugW]

The usb was made on a pc.

If you just cloned the installer to the USB drive on Windows, it won't work.

 

[Amethyst1]

The usb was made on a pc.

You need to use the createinstallmedia command hidden in the installer package to correctly create a bootable USB installer for Mavericks — and that command requires macOS.

 

[mba1975]

You need to use the createinstallmedia command hidden in the installer package to correctly create a bootable USB installer for Mavericks — and that command requires macOS.

Ok so I must use another Mac to create a bootable usb with mavericks?

 

[Amethyst1]

Ok so I must use another Mac to create a bootable usb with mavericks?

Yes. Maybe a macOS VM running on your Windows PC would also work but I’ve never tried this.

 

[BrianBaughn]

If you can actually make an installer that works there's a lot to consider here.

There are people that might disagree with me but trying to run High Sierra on an iMac with a 7200RPM spinner hard drive would be pretty unbearable. You didn't say how much RAM it has but if it's not at least 8GB the experience would be even worse.

There might be disagreement on this also…you can run an earlier version of macOS with better performance results but in my experience trying to do that with current software requirements across the board is mostly a waste of effort.

An alternative would be to crack the iMac open, replace the hard drive with an SSD and also increase the RAM if needed. Then, to make it as "current" as possible, use dosdude1's patcher to install Catalina. I've been running a 2008 MacBook in this manner but we're at a point now that doing all that may not be worth the effort, either.

Another choice is to find a lightweight, not-too-old Linux distro that will run OK on it. I'm not sure what that experience would be.

 

[EugW]

If you can actually make an installer that works there's a lot to consider here.

There are people that might disagree with me but trying to run High Sierra on an iMac with a 7200RPM spinner hard drive would be pretty unbearable. You didn't say how much RAM it has but if it's not at least 8GB the experience would be even worse.

There might be disagreement on this also…you can run an earlier version of macOS with better performance results but in my experience trying to do that with current software requirements across the board is mostly a waste of effort.

An alternative would be to crack the iMac open, replace the hard drive with an SSD and also increase the RAM if needed. Then, to make it as "current" as possible, use dosdude1's patcher to install Catalina. I've been running a 2008 MacBook in this manner but we're at a point now that doing all that may not be worth the effort, either.

Another choice is to find a lightweight, not-too-old Linux distro that will run OK on it. I'm not sure what that experience would be.

All reasonable statements. Just to add to that:

While I wouldn't say 10.13 High Sierra would be completely unbearable, I agree it wouldn't be very pleasant in terms of performance for an often used machine. The good news is that it is easy to add RAM. The experience with 10.12 Sierra wouldn't be great either.

However, even though earlier OS X versions would feel faster, they have too many other issues IMO for daily use machines. There are various workarounds, but they are just that, workarounds. I generally consider 10.13 High Sierra a decent starting point for a modern computer. Anything prior to that (or at least prior to 10.12 Sierra) comes with big caveats.

The ideal situation as you suggest would be to install an SSD +/- RAM. High Sierra would be excellent with such a machine. I'm not completely sold on the idea of Catalina though. On my 2008 MacBook and 2009 MacBook Pro (both 8 GB RAM + SSD), Catalina feels sluggish (more so on the 2008) although with a 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo it would be more acceptable. More importantly though, I find Catalina on these machines buggy. Chrome is especially problematic on Catalina, on both of my machines. To me Catalina on these old Core 2 Duo machines feels more Hackintoshy than true Macs, whereas High Sierra on them feels like legit Macs.

Just my personal opinion though.

 

[BrianBaughn]

It depends on what you try to use it for, I suppose.

On the 2008 MacBook I gave up on Chrome long ago. It was an instant heat/fan running app and still is.

I was previously running dosdude1's Mojave on it and have found that Catalina seems better. Maybe it's the APFS thing…I dunno.

For one thing, it runs full-screen video of Xfinity TV in Safari better than Mojave or Sierra ever did. This could be due to improvements in the website coding in relation to Safari's. It's impossible to compare now, of course, as you can't go back to the old website version and the new version won't run in most older Safari versions.

Anyway, I hope discussing this gives the OP some idea of what is possible.

 

[EugW]

It depends on what you try to use it for, I suppose.

On the 2008 MacBook I gave up on Chrome long ago. It was an instant heat/fan running app and still is.

An ad blocker helps immensely, if you weren't already using one.

The problem was that Safari has compatibility issues with many sites. Chrome is a lot more consistent. I'm not a big fan of FireFox these days but YMMV.

But Chrome on High Sierra just worked better for me than on Catalina, both for lack of bugginess and for performance.

 

[bobesch]

Any progress or success?
Have You got a second Mac at hands (and which one, what OSX/macOS)?

 

[mba1975]

Any progress or success?
Have You got a second Mac at hands (and which one, what OSX/macOS)?

Hi there
None yet. I honestly haven't had time to create a bootable yet, a lot covid19 intervention in the family. But I do have another Mac to create it on, a macbook pro mid 10 with Snow Leopard on it.

 

[Amethyst1]

But I do have another Mac to create it on, a macbook pro mid 10 with Snow Leopard on it.

Hopefully the createinstallmedia command to create a bootable Mavericks installer works on Snow Leopard.