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I've got my good ol' last model Macbook that came in black and now I'm just trying to figure out how I can get Lion onto a thumb drive to do a clean wipe. Unfortunately, the person who borrowed it tossed a password on it so I can't get into it to create the thumb drive within the OS. Is there a way for me to build up a thumb drive on my Windows machine?

Have you checked if the recovery partition is still available? You should be able to wipe the disk from there then reinstall. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

Otherwise, I've heard transmac can do the trick from windows: http://pureinfotech.com/make-bootable-u ... x-windows/

Was this person trying to hint that they think it's time to get a new MacBook? 9+ years old is ... old, and relying on an OS with no security patches for nearly 3 years and that doesn't support most anti-virus suites is a bit yeesh. (Sorry, it's just that Lion was EOL the same year as Windows XP, so makes me twitch a bit.)

That said, do you need a clean install from an OS image USB drive to get it back? Can't you do a recovery boot and restore (power on, immediately hold down Command-R, until you see the logo then choose Restore from Time Machine backup)?

The hazards of proprietary hardware reliant on a proprietary OS...

It pisses me off enough that I'm reliant on Sprint to get Android updates for my phone, and that its useful life will be determined not by the lifetime of the hardware itself, but by an arbitrary decision made by some combination of Google, LG, and Sprint.

I hope I never have to deal with that sort of issue for my laptop or desktop.

just brew it! wrote:

It pisses me off enough that I'm reliant on Sprint to get Android updates for my phone, and that its useful life will be determined not by the lifetime of the hardware itself, but by an arbitrary decision made by some combination of Google, LG, and Sprint.

I hope I never have to deal with that sort of issue for my laptop or desktop.

Yes, but you can put the effort in so while there's always an EOL for any hardware for a given OS, it matters less as it comes slower the more effort you put in ^*. There's no reason that MacBook can't be running Linux, but it's more effort than an obsolete version of Mac OS, I guess (and it's certainly possible that there's required software which is incompatible with GNU/Linux).

If it's a Core 2 Duo one, I'd expect to be able to get a lot longer than Apple's designed 2008-2014 out of it by running Linux; probably 2030 would be achievable, assuming the battery didn't go up in flames first

[*] e.g. the 386's Windows EOL was 2001-12-31 (end of support for Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51) ; Debian dropped 486 and earlier in Squeeze (so they are now unsupported) and 586-class in Stretch (so they have to run Jessie until April 2020, then will be unsupported in Debian) ; Linux itself dropped the 386 in late 2012 ... and Windows 10 has semi-dropped the Cloverview Atom's already, locking them into version 1607 and EOL'ing them in 2023 rather than 2025...

I'm just trying to bring it back to state of working for old MAC OS software that I have with it not connected to the internet. As well as it just being a nice little collectors item of what used to be

Why not just root it? It takes about a minute with the right key combination at boot (that I don't recall at the moment, but I believe is valid back to that old OS version).

@Topinio - Yeah, at least with Linux the hardware typically becomes obsolete long before the OS stops supporting it. I also imagine a sufficiently determined DIYer can replace the battery in that old MacBook; it's not like you're going to void the warranty at this point!

just brew it! wrote:

I also imagine a sufficiently determined DIYer can replace the battery in that old MacBook; it's not like you're going to void the warranty at this point!

Doesn't look all that bad, honestly.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Un ... ement/1667

Assuming the "last MacBook" means the white unibody anyway.

A hundred bucks is a lot for a battery though. https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBoo ... F160-065-1

derFunkenstein wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

I also imagine a sufficiently determined DIYer can replace the battery in that old MacBook; it's not like you're going to void the warranty at this point!

Doesn't look all that bad, honestly.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Un ... ement/1667

Assuming the "last MacBook" means the white unibody anyway.

A hundred bucks is a lot for a battery though. https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBoo ... F160-065-1

It's a "last model Macbook that came in black" i.e.the MacBook (Early 2008) == MacBook4,1 rather than the MacBook (Late 2009) == MacBook6,1 linked there -- hence the need for Lion, as that 2009 one supports Sierra.

just brew it! wrote:

@Topinio - Yeah, at least with Linux the hardware typically becomes obsolete long before the OS stops supporting it. I also imagine a sufficiently determined DIYer can replace the battery in that old MacBook; it's not like you're going to void the warranty at this point!

Good news is, battery replacement is trivial and the battery price is only $80

Oh geez, sorry. I missed the black part.