Cant install macos on mid 2009 macbook pro

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Level 1

4 points

Cant install macos on mid 2009 macbook pro

I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo mid 2009. From the very beginning I had MacOS El Capitan and I wanted to downgrade to an older system, i chose 10.9. for this I made a usb drive with Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks using ASR because create Media install did it too long, then I tried to boot onto this flash drive and I succeeded but the installer simply did not open and a window appeared that an error occurred while installing MacOS.

I then formatted my main disk on which the system was located tried again and everything was the same the installer simply did not open.

okay I understand that 10.9 is a rather capricious system it may not install there something like that okay I found DVD disc with the 10.5.7 installer at home the Macbook was originally supplied on this system

I tried to insert it and it turns out that it looks like I have a dead dvd drive, the disk clicked clicked spat out in general it didn't work for me.

it's ok I tried to make an installation flash drive again but with macos 10.6 I made it with dd

sudo dd if=~/Downloads/Mac.OS.X.10.6.3.Retail.dmg of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1m

I did all this using chat GPT because I don't really understand it and in the end I insert the flash drive, hold down option when loading and nothing just appears the flash drive doesn't appear as a bootable device, Then I insert it into another Mac and it tells me that the disk cannot be read by this computer and that it is not initialized.

I don’t know what to do. Help. I’m very tired, maybe i should buy an external dvd drive and try original 10.5.7 dvds?

[Edited by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Aug 11, 2025 12:27 PM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

68,228 points

Aug 11, 2025 5:18 PM in response to f7n1t

Why do you want to downgrade the OS? The only two versions of macOS that makes sense would be the latest OS 10.11.x or OSX 10.6.8 (still had Rosetta 1 for compatibility with PPC apps). Any OS in between I don't believe is relevant for any reason unless you have an outdated app that won't work with 10.11.

If you can still boot into the full macOS 10.11 on this laptop, then try running DriveDx (free trial period) to check the health of the hard drive. Post the complete DriveDx text here so I can examine it for possible clues. No sense doing anything if that internal Hard Drive is failing.

If you want to attempt to make a bootable OS X 10.6 USB stick from a DVD, then you can try the instructions in the following two links (I think I did this years ago, but forget the details on whether to select the physical DVD or the volume). I also do not know whether a version of Disk Utility from 10.11+ will work to make the image (it should, but I think it was a bit trickier....it was one reason I didn't upgrade my old Mac beyond macOS 10.10 Yosemite since Disk Utility behavior changed with 10.11+). I don't think any other method will work to make a bootable OSX 10.6 USB stick from the DVD.

Creating Bootable OS 10.6 on Flash Drive - Apple Community

https://osxdaily.com/2009/09/02/install-snow-leopard-from-external-firewire-or-usb-hard-drive-or-how-to-upgrade-to-106-without-a-dvd-drive/

Otherwise @tbirdvet has the link to the official Apple instructions for creating bootable macOS USB installers for various versions of macOS (10.10 is also possible by slightly modifying the instructions for 10.11).

You can also use an external optical drive to install OSX 10.6 using the retail upgrade DVD installer (or for making a bootable 10.6 USB installer).

FYI, try Option Booting the system to see if you can see a Recovery option on the Apple boot picker menu. If so, then you can use it to reinstall the currently installed version of macOS.

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Answer 2

tbirdvet

Level 6

17,018 points

Aug 11, 2025 4:18 PM in response to f7n1t

To have a bootable flash drive work you need to follow the attached process exactly especially when using terminal or the system will give the error of not recognized .

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Aug 11, 2025 10:08 PM in response to f7n1t

f7n1t wrote:

i chose 10.9. for this I made a usb drive with Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks using ASR because create Media install did it too long, then I tried to boot onto this flash drive and I succeeded but the installer simply did not open and a window appeared that an error occurred while installing MacOS.

Where did you even get a copy of 10.9 (Mavericks)?

If you have a compatible Mac, you can download any of the major versions of Mac OS X / macOS from 10.7 (Lion) through 15 (Sequoia) except for Mavericks. It's not to be found on Apple's download page (second link below).

Update macOS on Mac - Apple Support

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

A mid 2009 MacBook Pro would have shipped with some version of Leopard or Snow Leopard, and as far as I know, Apple never sold Mavericks on physical media (optical discs or USB flash drives).

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