Apple
This page was created as a place holder for documents and experiences that pertain to Apple products.
December, 2023.. Apple product users have been coming to the Sun City Computer Help Center for all the years I have been creating content for this wiki. I do not know if or where, the lessons learned by the volunteers that provided them help, are retained. So, I am going to add some items that I learned during the process of upgrading a donated macbook pro to Sonoma (14.2). The macbook is 13 years old and well past official Apple support.
Opencore Legacy Patcher I used this tool to install Mac OS 14.2 (Sonoma) on a circa 2010 Macbook Pro (8,1). It works. A couple of days after the upgrade, Apple indicated there was a new “upgrade” available. The upgrade was for Mac OS 14.2.1, which was a 13 gigabyte download. I allowed the upgrade to happen. The “gotcha” in the upgrade to 14.2.1 was…. The device drivers installed by OCLP (Open Core Legacy Patcher) to make 14.2 work on this mac “were over-written” with the 14.2.1 upgrade. The solution… Run the OCLP utility that “re-applies” the device driver changes that occured during the first upgrade. So.. The lesson learned… IF you allow an Apple “Upgrade”, “remember” to use the OCLP utility to apply driver “changes” that are necessary for your “unsupported” hardware.
Update: January 2025. The Macbook mentioned in the previous paragraph is now running Sequoia 15.2. Opencore Legacy Patcher continues to provide “stuff” needed to keep my MacBook running the latest OS. However…. You need to RTFM and keep the version of Opencore Legacy Patcher “up to date” before allowing upgrades….
As usual, youtube.com contains plenty of videos about “OpenCore Legacy Patcher”. Most of them are short and precise. My opinion… Invest a few minutes watching a couple of the youtube videos about OpenCore Legacy Patcher. Keeping your apple product usable for a few more years seems to be “easy” with just a few minutes of education.
During my Help Center years I have upgraded a few macs to SSD (Solid State Drives). On at least one occassion it was not easy to access the “inside” of the computer.
The simple stuff…. Knowing “if” a mac is experienceing issues with a hard drive can be “hard”. The tool I use on WIndows, gsmartcontrol, is easy to acquire and quick to install, on Windows. Using the “same/similar” tool on a Mac requires installation of “gsmartcontrol” from Macports or HomeBrew. However, the command line tools from smartmontools.org are “adequate”.
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