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Is there a legal way to download old installation discs for free? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/apple_enthusiast@lemmy.world

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A few years ago I bought an old Mac, PowerPC I think, but it doesn't work properly. If I boot normally only one of the two CPU cores works, but both work in safe mode.

I imagine that there are ways to repair it, but as it's second hand, I would probably be better off with a clean installation. I've never owned a Mac before, so although it's outdated, I'd rather get it back to a default state than install Linux, and it also means that once I've finished with it I can pass it on to someone else who would appreciate it.

Is there a way to get the installation media? From what I remember from the last time I tried to get it running, it can use either Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion (10. something?)

Thanks in advance :)

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[–] ultratiem@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Hi, just to clear up some things. You say only some cores work. Yeah that’s not possible. This isn’t a car where some pistons can fire while others do not. A processor works or it doesn’t. There is no “oh only 3 out of the 8 cores work.”

Two, no amount of reinstalling or software will fix a hardware fault.

As for macOS:

The last OS capable of running on PPC is Leopard (10.5). People have hacked SL tho: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/snow-leopard-on-unsupported-powerpc-macs.2232031/

Apple provides ISOs of every macOS release all the way back to Lion: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683. Won’t help you, but may help others.

As for Leopard, you can grab a copy from: https://archive.org/details/OsxLeopardInstall

Lastly, legally speaking you’re fine. Apple won’t sue you for downloading an old installer for an obsolete product.

[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago

Hi, just to clear up some things. You say only some cores work. Yeah that’s not possible. This isn’t a car where some pistons can fire while others do not. A processor works or it doesn’t. There is no “oh only 3 out of the 8 cores work.”

Two, no amount of reinstalling or software will fix a hardware fault.

Possible or not, that's the error message it was giving me. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of one core was disabled or not functioning. I opened whatever the equivalent of Task Manager is called (it's been a while), and the CPU was only showing one working core. In safe mode, it was showing two.

Obviously nothing's going to fix a hardware error, but seeing as the second core was apparently working in safe mode, it's clearly a software error, hence the need for installation discs to wipe and reinstall the software. There's a chance that the whole thing is screwed, and the CPU is dying, but I'm not going to know unless I test it.

I've got some free time coming up, so I'm hoping to get everything ready beforehand and try to get this system working again :)