MacOS – Reinstalling Mac OS X on Macbook with swapped hard drive

macbook promacos

I don't know much about Macs, so when my girlfriend asked me to repair her old Macbook, I tried to swap out the hard drive from my junker laptop. I got it all changed and now the boot manager shows a single partition for Windows. However, I am a little stuck on how I am to boot into Mac OS X to reinstall it?

I was able to get a dump of the App Store version of Mac OS X Lion, and upon placing that on a USB drive with TransMac, it was recognized by the boot manager. But unfortunately, on choosing it, a large NO symbol was shown and the computer shut down.

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Basically do the following:

To start Recovery, hold down the Command + R keys while booting. The interface is pretty straightforward after that and you should be able to figure it out.

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MacOS – Reinstalling a MacBook Pro w/Lion (10.7.2), when previous owner died, can it be done? What do I need

It can only be done if the son's account has purchased a copy of Lion from the Mac App Store. So either wait to get the password for the father's Apple ID or have the son drop $30 and purchase a new copy of Lion.

MacOS – MacBookPro wont boot Transcend SSD320

Strange indeed!

It runs from USB but not when you put the hard drive back in the computer?

In any case check your disk for problems.

Start up your computer in single-user mode to reach the command line. Note: If necessary, perform a forced restart as described in the Emergency Troubleshooting Handbook that came with your computer.

On desktop computers, you can do this by pressing the reset/interrupt button (if there is one) or holding down the power button for several seconds. On portable computers, simultaneously press the Command-Control-power keys. If your portable computer doesn't restart with this method, you may need to reset the Power Manager. At the command-line prompt type:
/sbin/fsck -fy

Press Return. fsck will go through five "phases" and then return information about your disk's use and fragmentation. Once it finishes,
it'll display this message if no issue is found:
    ** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK 

If fsck found issues and has altered, repaired, or fixed anything, it will display this message:

    ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***** 

Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command you typed in step 2 until fsck tells you that your volume appears to be OK
(first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues, so this is a normal thing to do).
When fsck reports that your volume is OK, type reboot at the prompt and then press Return.

But it could be just the flat cable connecting the hard drive to motherboard !

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MacOS – MacBookPro wont boot Transcend SSD320

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