mid 2009 white MacBook running Mac OS Sierra

good morning, I have my mid 2009 white MacBook running Mac OS Sierra 10.12 for about 2 days now without any issues, supposedly my MacBook does not support Sierra but a friend of mine said he knew how to make it work he just needed the laptop for a few hours and an official Mac OS Sierra installer which I had already installed on my Mac mini at home so copied the installer to a 16 gb usb flash drive, brought it and the MacBook to his house on Sunday, he was having a bbq and while we were doing the bbq he installed Mac OS Sierra on it. seems to be even faster than el capatian too. hopefully it remains this way. the only thing that doesn't work completely is the touch pad, it works as a basic mouse. I have a Magic Mouse I can use if I need to have advanced features that the touch pad dosnt support anymore. looks like another great software release by Apple again.

supposedly my MacBook does not support Sierra

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No, a mid 2009 White MacBook will run Sierra(as you have found out).

the only thing that doesn't work completely is the touch pad, it works as a basic mouse

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I suspect that is down to the design of the touchpad, but I maybe wrong.

There was a "Mid-2009" White MacBook and a "Late 2009" White MacBook. Officially the Mid-2009 maxes out with El Capitan...and the Late-2009 can officially run the latest OS (Sierra).

Sounds like the OP has a mid-2009 MacBook (2.13ghz CPU)...which officially is not supposed to be able to run Sierra. Maybe someone has figured a way around the limitation.

- Nick

No, a mid 2009 White MacBook will run Sierra(as you have found out).

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With a work around yes, without a work around or hack, no. There were three 2009 MacBooks - early, mid, and late. According to Apple only the late model is officially supported.

I am not sure what he did, but it seems to be working perfect. should know when an update besides iTunes comes out...

it says MacBook 13 inch mid 2009 in about this Mac

When Apple states that only the late 2009 MacBook will run Sierra it's usually because the earlier models are not able to utilize all the features of Sierra. Sometimes it involves firmware, however, if that were the case with your MacBook, a work around would fail. So, our advice to you... is keep on trucking! ;D

chscag said:

With a work around yes, without a work around or hack, no. There were three 2009 MacBooks - early, mid, and late. According to Apple only the late model is officially supported.

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I wonder what those three WHITE models might be??? I can only account for two, neither of which is officially supported to run macOS Sierra:
Apple MacBook Specs (All MacBook Technical Specs): EveryMac.com

And it would be interesting to know exactly what the "friend" used… hmmm…???

But it sounds like it worked pretty well as did the BBQ!!! Maybe some nice Skokie Illinois ribs or…???

EDIT:
Seems like it's probably "supported" to use the hack:
macOS Sierra Patch Tool






- Patrick
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pm-r said:

I wonder what those three WHITE models might be??? I can only account for two, neither of which is officially supported to run macOS Sierra:

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Late 2009 White MacBook can Officially run Sierra:

MacBook "Core 2 Duo" 2.26 13" (Uni/Late 09) Specs (Late 2009, MC207LL/A, MacBook6,1, A1342, 2350*): EveryMac.com

And here's the official list of models that can run Sierra:

Which Macs can run macOS Sierra?



- Nick

Thanks Nick,

I missed the fact that the "MacBook "Core 2 Duo" 2.26 13" (Uni/Late 09)" was actually a "White Polycarbonate "Unibody" - Late 2009" model.

Pretty scrambled and dubious naming convention methods I'd say…





- Patrick
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Mactracker tells me there are three 13" MacBook, early model 5.2, mid and late both known as the 6.1 and all of them can run macOS Sierra so may not have required much of a hack.

seems like everything works ok, only issue and its not really an issue is that the touch pad only works as a basic single button mouse, so if I need to copy and paste any images from the storm prediction website to our severe weather group on Facebook I need to use my Magic Mouse which really isn't a big deal since I have 2 of them. even Siri works on the MacBook. now if only someone could figure out how to get Siri to work on a 2nd gen iPad

Have you tried setting up the trackpad again?

it is the touchpad build in the machine. it shows up as a mouse. probably not supported by Sierra, which isn't too big of a deal. at least wifi and everything else works

If it's a trackpad, it's not a mouse. Go to System Preferences > Trackpad > then you have a series of choices; you may need to reset them. Example:

Sounds like the OP has a mid-2009 MacBook (2.13ghz CPU)...which officially is not supposed to be able to run Sierra.

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I was going by Mactracker which says that mid 2009 White MacBooks can run the latest OS. Closer inspection shows that they haven't updated yet and they mean El Capitan.

MightyGem said:

I was going by Mactracker which says that mid 2009 White MacBooks can run the latest OS. Closer inspection shows that they haven't updated yet and they mean El Capitan.

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Mactracker just got updated today to v. 7.6 (Oct 19, 2016) that seems to have updated the specs and info approppriately.




- Patrick
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