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install mac os on 2009 imac

TrainFan475
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2 minutes ago, ProjectBox153 said:

You can boot Macs from at least as far back as the early G4s from USB. Any Intel iMac should have zero problems with it.

Is there anyone you can borrow one from?

Well one of my friends has one, I would have to make a trip to their house to use it

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x  | GPU: GTX 1070 FE | RAM: TridentZ 16GB 3200MHz | Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 Aorus M | PSU: EVGA 650 B3 | STORAGE: Boot drive: Crucial MX500 1TB, Secondary drive: WD Blue 1TB hdd | CASE: Phanteks P350x | OS: Windows 10 | Monitor: Main: ASUS VP249QGR 144Hz, Secondary: Dell E2014h 1600x900

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17 minutes ago, TrainFan90 said:

Well one of my friends has one, I would have to make a trip to their house to use it

If you can do that and take a blank flash drive with you then that would make this a whole lot easier. 

Main System: Phobos

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8C/16T), ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 16GB G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 3000MHz, AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB (XFX), 960GB Crucial M500, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations/macOS Catalina

 

Secondary System: York

Intel Core i7-2600 (4C/8T), ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3, 16GB GEIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz, Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB, 240GB ADATA Ultimate SU650, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

Older File Server: Yet to be named

Intel Pentium 4 HT (1C/2T), Intel D865GBF, 3GB DDR 400MHz, ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB (HIS), 80GB WD Caviar, 320GB Hitachi Deskstar, Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2

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alright, I can confirm that the late 2009 mac does support booting from usb. I just tested a memtest86 stick and it showed right up and it's running memtest86. So I guess I was doing the mac os bootable usb wrong.

46 minutes ago, ProjectBox153 said:

If you can do that and take a blank flash drive with you then that would make this a whole lot easier. 

Yeah I'm going to try using my friend's actual mac to create the bootable usb.

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x  | GPU: GTX 1070 FE | RAM: TridentZ 16GB 3200MHz | Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 Aorus M | PSU: EVGA 650 B3 | STORAGE: Boot drive: Crucial MX500 1TB, Secondary drive: WD Blue 1TB hdd | CASE: Phanteks P350x | OS: Windows 10 | Monitor: Main: ASUS VP249QGR 144Hz, Secondary: Dell E2014h 1600x900

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7 hours ago, Kilrah said:

I'm not even sure macs supported installing the OS from USB back then? Might have no choice but to use a DVD

Yep, had that problem with an old Mac Book Pro at work once. Installation is only supported using the media that was current at the time the machine was made. Problem was that we had removed the DVD drive in favor of a second HDD and one of the screws got stripped in the process :/

 

If I remember correctly we could use Cmd+R to get into recovery mode (during startup) and then use this to restore it. Not sure if we did a network install or a time machine recovery though.

Remember to either quote or @mention others, so they are notified of your reply

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Success!!! I finally was able to install mac os Lion with this dmg file and transmac.

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x  | GPU: GTX 1070 FE | RAM: TridentZ 16GB 3200MHz | Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 Aorus M | PSU: EVGA 650 B3 | STORAGE: Boot drive: Crucial MX500 1TB, Secondary drive: WD Blue 1TB hdd | CASE: Phanteks P350x | OS: Windows 10 | Monitor: Main: ASUS VP249QGR 144Hz, Secondary: Dell E2014h 1600x900

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2 hours ago, TrainFan90 said:

Success!!! I finally was able to install mac os Lion with this dmg file and transmac.

I hope you're planning to upgrade that to High Sierra. Lion is way out of date. Glad to hear that it's running though!

Main System: Phobos

AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8C/16T), ASRock B450 Steel Legend, 16GB G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 3000MHz, AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB (XFX), 960GB Crucial M500, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations/macOS Catalina

 

Secondary System: York

Intel Core i7-2600 (4C/8T), ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3, 16GB GEIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz, Zotac GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB, 240GB ADATA Ultimate SU650, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

 

Older File Server: Yet to be named

Intel Pentium 4 HT (1C/2T), Intel D865GBF, 3GB DDR 400MHz, ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB (HIS), 80GB WD Caviar, 320GB Hitachi Deskstar, Windows XP Pro SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2

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On 1/9/2021 at 8:35 PM, ProjectBox153 said:

I hope you're planning to upgrade that to High Sierra. Lion is way out of date. Glad to hear that it's running though!

Just upgraded to high sierra and it's running like butter. I installed macs fan control and it took care of the fans running at full speed.

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x  | GPU: GTX 1070 FE | RAM: TridentZ 16GB 3200MHz | Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 Aorus M | PSU: EVGA 650 B3 | STORAGE: Boot drive: Crucial MX500 1TB, Secondary drive: WD Blue 1TB hdd | CASE: Phanteks P350x | OS: Windows 10 | Monitor: Main: ASUS VP249QGR 144Hz, Secondary: Dell E2014h 1600x900

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  • 11 months later...
Posted

congrats @TrainFan475 though i am almost a year late is it still working fine 

mine was slow as hell had to upgrade to a apple m1 max as a laptop and a custom build as a desk top

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