Stuck between Snow Leopard and Yosemite install-no escape!

[Randalls]

OK, thanks. They are checking the advice now.

[hal]

I think that in this situation, it is wise to zero the hard drive before installing again. A major crash while installing the OS may have left some badly corrupted files on the drive. A regular format doesn't erase those files.

btw, there is no model A1927, you must have meant A1297, but that only describes the body of the computer and was used in models Early 2009 through Late 2011. I wouldn't be keen on installing 10.10 on an early 2009 model.

Good luck!

[deckeda]

10.10 flies on my Late '08 MBP. Safari 8 is the best browser I've ever used. The forwarded SMS/Phone calls on it work fine. Not much else features-wise from Yosemite arrives on such old hardware but it's enough to still make it a worthwhile upgrade.

[Chakravartin]

modelamac wrote:
When installing Yosemite or Mavericks, a Recovery Disk is installed. That is the first step when installing Mav/Yosemite, I believe, so it should be there and available on the problem Mac. It's the replacement for the OS on a DVD.

To get to it, hold Cmd R at the startup sound. Then chose to reinstall the OS.

...After using the copy of the Disk Utility on the Recovery volume to check SMART status, repair the drive and repair permissions.