Please help, mac wont boot to osx utilities, only installer

Hi all, last week a friend of mine gave a 2010 Mac-book pro as a present, as my 2k Rig was destroyed ( water cooler issue ) it had no hdd/disks/anything. Bought a new power supply, SSD, and made a Mac os lion boot-able USB from a guide. For days all i could do was boot to osx utilities, but kept getting " unable to download additional etc " i suspected HDD cable, so bought a 2TB External USB drive. Formatted it in Disk utility, GUID/one partition in journal.

I took the same USB, popped it in as well as new formatted external HDD, and for some reason it keeps going straight to "Installing" i have tried removing external drive, same thing happens everytime, even different versions, keeps going to installing then stops with error " There was a problem installing "Mac OS X" try reinstalling" i think the problem is the usb is trying to install it on itself. Any suggestions appriciiated,

PS: Only key combo that works is Alt/option

Tried all disks plugged out except boot USB, same.

Thanks,
A Mac newbie!

Welcome to our forums.

Where did the copy of Lion come from? Lion was never supplied on disk and it appears the copy you have may be corrupt especially if the source was from an illegal site. A 2010 MacBook Pro came with Snow Leopard installed. You would be better off purchasing a Snow Leopard DVD from Apple ($19.99) and use it to install.

Also I'm assuming by power supply you mean a new MagSafe Adapter Charger? And if the SATA cable is defective (likely) no amount of installing or different hard drives is going to work until that cable is replaced. For instructions on how to change the cable and for a replacement cable go to www.ifixit.com. That site is a wealth of information about repairing your MacBook Pro and they do have some parts for sale.

Hi and thank you for reply, have only started in mac since last week, a friend of a friend gave me the usb, he told me it would work on all macs. I took him at face value as he is the only other person i know who has/uses a mac. I bought the charger from an apple store in Grafton street here in Dublin, i had a quick chat with the guy there and he told me you could boot from external drive, and told me to check apple website forum, that it's not simple like windows.

I have put off buying anything for it, as i am afraid that i will just waste money that i don't have tbh. If i can get mac installed on the external drive, that will prove to me the mac is worth investing in, and i would be more then happy to buy whatever it needs.

Thanks.

It's always difficult to give a good answer to this question because it's a catch 22 situation. You cannot evaluate a Mac ( or a Windows pc for that matter) if it has no operating system. You need an external drive capable of booting the device. You may be able to obtain one in usb thumb drive form on eBay or similar. A bootable installer would be the best option although this contravenes the EULA you will find they are available. You can install say, mountain lion then upgrade the os using your own Apple ID. The problem is that if the installer won't boot there is no way to know if the installer or the device is at fault. Perhaps A your friend could create a bootable installer for you using Diskmaker X. He would if course need to download an os from the App Store first in which case Mavericks would be a better os to install.

Rod Sprague said:

It's always difficult to give a good answer to this question because it's a catch 22 situation. You cannot evaluate a Mac ( or a Windows pc for that matter) if it has no operating system. You need an external drive capable of booting the device. You may be able to obtain one in usb thumb drive form on eBay or similar. A bootable installer would be the best option although this contravenes the EULA you will find they are available. You can install say, mountain lion then upgrade the os using your own Apple ID. The problem is that if the installer won't boot there is no way to know if the installer or the device is at fault. Perhaps A your friend could create a bootable installer for you using Diskmaker X. He would if course need to download an os from the App Store first in which case Mavericks would be a better os to install.

Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for replying. Friend that gave me the mac works in computer repair, does not even own a mac himself, as he is a PC gamer. he does not have any of the original disks ( i asked after trying his usb with no luck )

The sole issue i need resolved is to stop the usb boot going directly to "installing" and instead let me load OS X disk utility, if i was 100% sure buying the disks would work, i would buy them, i just want to boot into utilities instead of outright installing. CMD-R does nothing ( 2010 MBP so no internet recovery ) holding option just gives me Down arrow with " install " etc.

I googled a bit and cannot even find exactly what version of Snow Leopard i need ( to ask friends and family by some miracle they might have it/know someone )

Any advice appreciated.

PS: is there a way to pause installer or way of changing install directory from USB boot? thanks

So, you have the MBP, a bootable USB, and an external drive?

If you put the bootable USB in the MBP, and turn it on, you should hold "option" down to get to your boot options screen. The boot options screen will list any drive connected that can start your MBP. Does the USB show up? Select it and start the Mac OS X/OS X/macOS installation. When you get to the screen to select the destination drive, connect the external drive to the MBP.

Make sure you format the external drive for macOS, most drives usually come pre formatted for Windows OS. To do this, before you attempt the above, with both the USB and external connected to the MBP, turn it on and hold "option" to get to the boot options screen. Select the USB installer and when it gets to the menu, select Disk Utility. In Disk Utility, you will need to select the external drive, not the bootable USB installer you are booted from. Next select erase, and format the drive with; GUID partition, Mac OS Extended Journaled format options. You mat want to name it something you will remember. Once this is done, you can proceed with the above steps.

Lion was available on a disk, I have one in front of me....

iamdavid said:

Lion was available on a disk, I have one in front of me....

Click to expand...

What kind of a disc? It was available from Apple, for a limited time, on a USB disc.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/os-x-lion-usb-install-drive-from-applecare-available/

Well this is a regular DVD

Not an Official Apple DVD. Where did you buy it, or did it come with your Mac when you purchased it?

I don't remember, it was years ago of course...

Of all the Mac App Store releases of Mac OS X/OS X/macOS, Lion was the only one that would fit on a DVD, so it was not made by Apple.

I'm sorry I ever posted this. I have a Lion DVD, OK? If you don't like it, lump it. OK? Now go away.

iamdavid said:

I'm sorry I ever posted this. I have a Lion DVD, OK? If you don't like it, lump it. OK? Now go away.

Click to expand...

Ok, sorry. I thought you would like to know. I don't plan on going back to Lion, and if I did, I have it in my MAS purchases.

Lion was never offered on a disk. It was available at one time on a USB flash drive purchased direct from Apple. Anything else on any other media is a pirated copy.