⟐ Answered April 23, 2025 at 15:58 MST

I did the Sierra upgrade on a couple of MacPros 4,1 and it has worked excellently, after I did a firmware update patch to get it to read as a MacPro 5,1, so I am very optimistic on doing it again. At the time I did it last year, it appeared that it couldn't be done on the 2008 MacPro. But, after watching a couple of videos, right now it appears I will not have to do a firmware update.

I'm first going to try the install on a 2008 MacPro, then try it on either a 2008 and/or early 2009 MacBook Pro.

I posted this to see if anyone has done it yet, also because I know we will have question on it, and to see if anyone has attempted it yet and has any advice.

I did my first install of 10.13 last night on a 2012 13" MBP without issue as expected but really have not looks at it yet. I did open a new install of MS Office 2011 which had reports that it was not going to work but so far have seen no issues.

Here's a list of the supported machines:

Here's the official list:

MacBook (late 2009 and later)

iMac (late 2009 and later)

MacBook Air (2010 and later)

MacBook Pro (2010 and later)

Mac Mini (2010 and later)

Mac Pro (2010 and later)

Here's the patch tool by dosdude for High Sierra, Iused his former patch to do the Sierra upgrade. It also tells you how to install it. It is reported to work on theses unsupported machines:

Requirements:

- Early-2008 or newer Mac Pro, iMac, or MacBook Pro (MacPro 3,1 and 4,1, iMac 8,1 and 9,1, MacBook Pro 4,1, 5,1 5,2, 5,3, 5,4, and 5,5)

- Late-2008 or newer MacBook Air or Aluminum Unibody MacBook (MacBookAir 2,1, MacBook 5,1)

- Early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or white MacBook (Macmini 3,1, MacBook 5,2)

- Early-2008 or newer Xserve (Xserve 2,1, Xserve 3,1)

Machines that ARE NOT supported:

- 2006-2007 Mac Pros, iMacs, MacBook Pros, and Mac Minis (MacPro 1,1 and 2,1, iMac 4,1, 5,1, 5,2, 6,1 and 7,1, MacBook Pro 1,1, 2,1, and 3,1, Macmini 1,1 and 2,1)

-- The 2007 iMac 7,1 is compatible if the CPU is upgraded to a Penryn-based Core 2 Duo, such as a T9300.

- 2006-2008 MacBooks (MacBook 1,1, 2,1 3,1 and 4,1)

- 2008 MacBook Air (MacBookAir 1,1)

http://dosdude1.com/highsierra/

UPDATE 10/5/17

Here's how I initially got my Early 2009 Mac Pro to take 10.2 Sierra:

EFI and Firmware update from 4,1 to 5,1 for Sierra Upgrade Solved

I have had no issues with this installation for the last year. I just booted this same machine from a High Sierra install on an external drive and it is what I'm using at this moment with no apparent issues. Warning I went to install it on an internal SSD and it says it wants to do a firmware update. Since I already did a hack firmware update, I'm afraid to do this yet until I know more about it.

⟐ Commented February 27, 2019 at 7:31 MST

I have question if is legal to have macOS on unsupported Macs. As I have Mac Pro 3.1 what have latest macOS (actually OS X) El Capitan. This machine is still powerful to run macOS Monterey (with OpenCore Legacy Patcher - upgrade to 32GB RAM with RX 560 and SSD). I even have it and running nice and smooth. Also can run apps what are no longer supported under El Capitan - specially Adobe Photoshop and Premiere.

But my question is - it is legal from Apple side ? Thanks a lot for any advice/ideas.

According to Apple Customer Support it is not illegal :) so I will say I am on the safe site :) (and if Apple will contact me about that I have proof that I asked :) )

⟐ Commented October 11, 2024 at 20:53 MST

First of all, sorry for my English but I'm not native!

Background: I just reached the capacity limit of my 250 GB HD intially bought with my MPB 15" (late 2008). The current HD is partitioned with 210GB for the Mac OS X Lion, and 40GB for Bootcamp with Windows 7.

My plan is to change the HD with a Crucial M4 512GB SDD and eventually allocate 450GB to OS X Lion, and 112GB to Bootcamp.

Of note, I do have a time machine back-up but I guess it only concern the files under OS X Lion.

I will need your view on the following:

1- In order not to reinstall everything, the quickiest way would be to clone the HD on the SDD, i.e. follow method #2 (from step 19).

a) How 250GB of data will be cloned on a 512GB volume space?

b) Is there as step during the cloning where we can decide to change the partition volume?

c) in summary, can I use cloning to reach my goal?

2- If the cloning does not allow me to reach my goal, I guess I will have to do a Fresh re-installation following your method #1?

3 - Finally, could you please confirm that I can replace the HD with the SDD using the following instruction guide.

Thanks a lot for your help and guides !

Cheers,

Emmanuel

⟐ Comment deleted April 21, 2021 at 7:14 MST

⟐ Answer accepted January 02, 2018 at 12:15 MST

I do not know how it disappeared from my Mac desktop and how to recovers all the deleted data back to my macOS hard drive.

Can anyone please help me?

⟐ Answered May 09, 2018 at 23:21 MST

Problem 2: when I boot from original 10.6 disk and go to the disk utility to partition and format the new drive it says it is shows the new drive I select the single partition mac journaled and name it Macintosh hd and select apply. The status bar says unmounting disk it barber poles for a minute or so then give an error box that says "partition fIled with this error: POSX reports: the operation couldn't be completed cannot allocate memory

Help

⟐ Answered May 26, 2018 at 13:13 MST

For Silhouette Studio, there's no clear answer on what to do and the Cameo 3 I have doesn't have the BT module to run it on an iPad (optional, used discount). They have given me zero help besides "install Rosetta" -- THIS IS APPLE, ROSETTA IS A BRIDGE; NOT A CRUTCH. I know we got screwed on PPC>Intel, but we know that was due to IBM dropping the product Apple used.

⟐ Answer accepted May 03, 2023 at 23:44 MST

⟐ Commented February 08, 2015 at 7:45 MST

Update

This installation was onto a 750 GB 2012 Apple hard drive from a 2012 15" MBP. It was in a MBP 13" Late 2011.

⟐ Answer accepted July 09, 2014 at 9:26 MST

I'm happy to trade my PC for a Mac, but this one has a touch screen - no keyboard or mouse - just a PC and a touch screen. I'm trying to connect this touch screen to my Mac, but I'm having some trouble "using" it (it doesn't work like Windows touch, so no on-screen keyboard, can't figure out how to open a folder or app, etc..)

Am I so stupid that I can't find the right setting or is there no touchscreen setting on macOS Monterey?

Thanks so much for any ideas/advice.

⟐ Commented August 22, 2023 at 8:15 MST

I can’t get it to download using my MacBook through legitimate Apple sources.

HELP! That link Aaron provided is from Apple and since I am running Mojave I can’t download it.

⟐ Answered February 22, 2020 at 12:35 MST

⟐ Edited April 29, 2022 at 6:58 MST

I have always been able to open Photos while on battery power, plug in the MacBook, open Finder, activate the screen saver, and let it run for a few hours. Normally, it works fine after that.

So far, I have tried:

Rebuilding the Library

Reinstalling macOS

Restoring pictures with Time Machine

Nest Cache folders "https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252...

Boot in Safe Mode

Reset NVRAM/PRAM

Reset SMC

Repair Library.

I have noticed, judging by the support online, that photoanalysisd is the program that scans photos. According to Activity Monitor, that program is never running, which means that the photos are not scanning.

I have been looking for a solution for about two weeks now, and I still can't find anything. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

⟐ Answered July 31, 2024 at 9:43 MST

I'm trying to use MacOS (Sierra) in a VM space on my Windows Lenovo laptop using VirtualBox app.

Problem is, the installation is not going smoothly as it had on VirtualBox VM space on my MacBook Air Early 2014 running Windows.

@mayer seems really good at Macs and the like, so I suppose he could help. I am still very open to others answers though.

MacOS Sierra download I used on both Link removed, as that could send a copyright strike my way. Sorry for any inconveniences.

Guide I used for both

VirtualBox

Laptop Specs:

Windows Laptop

• Windows 10 Home 64bit
• 8GB RAM
• Pen and touch support with 10 touch points (anyway I can use that somehow in the macOS VM?)
• Intel Core i5-8250U CPU at 1.6GHz
• Manufactured by Lenovo, Model #720-13IKB
• UEFI BIOS

Supports Hyper-V (which I had turned on in the BIOS, Because, you know, one of the first things people do with a new laptop is edit the BIOS [sarcasm])

Macbook Air

Specs: MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)

• 13”
• 1.4GHz
• 128GB

THANKS!

I'll post an image of the error soon currently reproducing it as I deleted the files for the Virtual machine accidently.

⟐ Answer edited April 21, 2021 at 1:55 MST

⟐ Answer deleted January 02, 2015 at 7:10 MST

⟐ Answered March 15, 2021 at 4:42 MST

⟐ Answer edited February 01, 2021 at 8:25 MST

⟐ Answer edited June 11, 2020 at 4:21 MST

⟐ Answer accepted November 24, 2016 at 10:30 MST