Installing Mac OS on Old iMac with Dead Drive

[NewHopeTech]

So my friends got a 2007 24" iMac with a dead hard drive. After I open it up and put a new drive in there and swap over the thermal probe, how do I get some version of MacOS on it? Can I download an iso on a different mac, then put it on a flash drive just like a windows or linux iso? Did Apple make it harder than that just cause?

[Bajantechnician]

21 minutes ago, NewHopeTech said:

So my friends got a 2007 24" iMac with a dead hard drive. After I open it up and put a new drive in there and swap over the thermal probe, how do I get some version of MacOS on it? Can I download an iso on a different mac, then put it on a flash drive just like a windows or linux iso? Did Apple make it harder than that just cause?

the easiest way to do this is to clone the old drive to a new one so you dont have to reinstall the os, which is a pain.

[NewHopeTech]

6 minutes ago, Bajantechnician said:

the easiest way to do this is to clone the old drive to a new one so you dont have to reinstall the os, which is a pain.

The drives been dead for years.

[Bajantechnician]

2 hours ago, NewHopeTech said:

The drives been dead for years.

oh, thats gonna be a pain then. 

 

are you able to access command+D?

 

[as96]

If internet recovery is not available on your machine you can use another Mac to make a bootable USB, there's an official guide here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372