Fixing un bootable internal drive of MacBook Pro mid 2009

Hi Muralidhar,

Thanks for contacting Apple Support Communities!

We understand that your Mac is unable to see the internal drive and you're not able to install macOS because of it.

If your internal drive isn't recognized, you can reset your NVRAM as outlined here: Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

If you're able to see your disk in Disk Utility after resetting the NVRAM, we'd suggest that you run Disk Utility before you attempt to reinstall macOS: How to repair a Mac disk with Disk Utility - Apple Support

If you need help to install an older macOS version, this article will guide you through the complete process: How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support

We hope this helps.

Cheers!

To attempt to resolve the original error shown in the first picture you may need to change the date to some time in 2017 (perhaps an earlier year). After booting into recovery mode launch the Terminal app from the Utilities menu and use the following command to change the date & time to Jan. 2, 2017 @ 11:33am:

date  -u  0102113317

If there are no errors, quit the Terminal app and select the "Reinstall macOS" or perhaps the "Reinstall OS X" option.

If this does not work, then you may need to use a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer using the instructions in this Apple article (read it carefully as there are multiple steps for extracting the installer from the downloaded .dmg file):

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

You will need access to a Qualifying Mac in order to extract the installer from the downloaded .dmg file. A Qualifying Mac is one which is compatible with macOS 10.11 although that Mac does not currently need to be running it. A Qualifying Mac for macOS 10.11 is most Macs from 2008 to 2015, but you can use this article to see which versions of macOS are compatible with various Apple hardware to confirm:

https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility

If you are launching the macOS installer from within macOS (even when booted from your external macOS 10.8 boot drive), then you need to use the current date & time. The same should apply if you created a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer and are booting from the macOS USB installer.

The error in the second picture is usually resolved by setting the date & time appropriately. The date & time should either be the current date & time or possibly an earlier date & time from 2017 (or perhaps an earlier year). As far as I know using the installer you just downloaded should in theory have the computer using the current date & time while booting from recovery mode would likely require an earlier date & time from 2017 (perhaps earlier).

As for the installation log, you should just start at the end of the log and scroll backwards to look for the first error which triggered the installer to abort. This can be a bit tricky to find since the installer will mention a lot of "failures", but you would need to figure out whether it was a critical failure (usually the critical failure will show log entries beginning the abort process). Sometimes even when you discover the error which aborted the install, it may not make any sense. The only way to post logs is by using the "Additional Text" icon, but even that probably won't allow the full log to be included and would be unnecessary anyway since usually the last part is relevant as that would be the section where the failure would be mentioned. Also, before posting the installation log you need to follow the suggestion Apple already provided to you. Since the first picture mentions the installer may be corrupted, this would be a good place to start as the error message tells you what to do (don't ignore an error message which provides suggestions/instructions). If it happens again, then it likely indicates a hardware issue of some sort (memory or a failing drive are most likely).

To eliminate any third party software from interfering, boot into Safe Mode to try to run the macOS 10.11 installer. You can boot into Safe Mode even when booting from an external drive, but you must first Option Boot the Mac....select the external boot drive, then immediately (within a couple of seconds hold down the Shift key and continue holding it until you log in).

If you are attempting to run the macOS 10.11 installer while booted to your macOS 10.5 drive, then it will most likely fail because the macOS 10.11 installer requires macOS 10.6+ as mentioned in this Apple article:

OS X El Capitan - Technical Specifications

If you instead have a macOS 10.8 boot drive, then you should be able to run the macOS 10.11 installer. Please make sure to be careful in listing the version of macOS you are using since I'm not sure if you have both a 10.5.8 and 10.8 boot drive here.

Creating and using a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer should also be considered since it would eliminate any possible software issues with any of your macOS boot drives.

You need to read the instructions in the article I linked in my previous post for creating a bootable macOS installer since there are multiple steps for downloading & extracting & using the 10.11 installer. When you ran the .pkg file it just extracted the installer into the Applications folder. You must now run the real installer which is located in the Applications folder.

Make sure to have a good backup of the data on your drive before you attempt to upgrade macOS in case something goes wrong with the upgrade.

You should always have frequent and regular backups of your computer and all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data.

I would personally create a bootable macOS 10.11 USB installer just so you may have more options if something goes wrong during the upgrade to macOS 10.11. I don't use TM so I don't know all the details, but I believe you will need to first reinstall macOS to the drive followed by migrating your data from the TM backup during the setup of the OS. As long as you have a bootable macOS drive for this laptop or USB installer, then you should be able to recover and restore everything from the backup (assuming the backup is good).

Before upgrading to macOS 10.11 I would suggest checking the health of the hard drive in this laptop especially if this laptop has the original hard drive. An OS install is stressful on a hard drive and may reveal as yet unnoticed hardware issue with the drive. You can check the health of the hard drive by running DriveDx. Usually any "Warning" or "Failing" notices indicate the hard drive is worn out or failing respectively, but drive issues may not be show anything here so a manual examination of the health information is best (SSDs are a bit different so a manual examination is always best since "Warning" & "Failing" notices do not necessarily indicate a bad SSD). Feel free to post the complete text report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.

You probably need to look at the entries just before those in the picture to see what operation triggered the crash. It is hard to say how far from this point that entry may be. Like I mentioned before, it can be hard to separate out normal expected failure messages and the actual critical failure entries. Looking at just the errors may not be enough either as you may need to see what operation immediately preceded an error to get an idea what was being done at the time.

Try running Disk Utility First Aid on the destination volume. Also see if there is a "Repair Permissions" option in First Aid as I don't recall when the Repair Permissions option was removed from macOS.

If you are running the installer from within macOS, then try booting into Safe Mode and try again just in case you have some third party software installed which is interfering with the normal operation of macOS. Using a UBS installer is also another option. Otherwise, probably the easiest way to figure this out would be to try performing a clean install to an external USB drive using a macOS USB installer as that will eliminate any third party software issues and any file system or internal drive issues from interfering.

Try running the Apple Hardware Test which should be located on the second DVD which shipped with the laptop from the factory. You will need to boot that DVD by holding the "C" key immediately after the startup chime, or by an Option Boot to select the Apple Hardware Test boot option while the DVD is in the optical drive.

The SSD appears Ok for the section of the health report posted.

Good luck with the upgrade to 10.11.

mvemula wrote:

I think 10.11.6 is the latest OS X we can put on MBP mid 2009 right !?

Yes, that is correct.