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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
artie505 #59883 11/10/21 03:52 PM
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OBSERVATION: The desktop image is immaterial and not a reliable indicator of the currently installed version of MacOS. I use a custom desktop and it has survived Big Sur and Monterey upgrades and innumerable updates unchanged. The reliable indicator of the currently installed OS version is found in the Apple Menu > About This Mac.

OPINION: While Artie and I have frequent differences of opinion on solutions, I concur wholeheartedly on all counts when he says…
Originally Posted by artie505
Understood, but the glitches you've run into may only be the obvious ones, with others lurking in the background.

Personally, I'd be leery about turning the kids lose on that iMac as it stands. frown

Now that you've got a direction in which to point yourself, I think you ought to go the nuke & pave route as soon as you've got a few spare moments.
If the installers have reported successful installations but those installations actually failed — as indicated by Apple Menu > About this Mac and regardless of the desktop image — there is apparently a serious underlying problem with the system and I would not trust it to be used even by (particularly by?) young children until I knew what was going on. The quickest, most reliable, solution would be nuke & pave from a Bootable Thumb Drive installer or external boot drive. Under the circumstances I would be wary of using a Recovery Drive installer in case it too had been somehow compromised.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
joemikeb #59884 11/10/21 04:17 PM
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Originally Posted by artie505
Now that you've got a direction in which to point yourself, I think you ought to go the nuke & pave route as soon as you've got a few spare moments.
Originally Posted by joemikeb
The quickest, most reliable, solution would be nuke & pave from a Bootable Thumb Drive installer or external boot drive. Under the circumstances I would be wary of using a Recovery Drive installer in case it too had been somehow compromised.
Given I do not have the Thumb Drive or spare bootable drive (without erasing one of my backup drives for the 27”), wouldn’t my original installation disks fully erase the drive before installing? If so, what’s next?

Available tools are: Original installation disks, original Snow Leopard disk.

On the first go round, the original install disks then had two consecutive on-line updates. I now wonder if they are suspect. i.e. if Apple doesn’t keep some major upgrades, why would they keep old updates?

How big a jump can I actually make from the original install disks? Although the advice is that the size of the jump shouldn’t matter, every upgrade has minimum system requirements.


ryck

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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59885 11/10/21 04:47 PM
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Originally Posted by ryck
Given I do not have the Thumb Drive or spare bootable drive (without erasing one of my backup drives for the 27”), wouldn’t my original installation disks fully erase the drive before installing? If so, what’s next?
Not unless you ran Disk Utility from the original install disk before installing, otherwise they simply overwrite what is there and given the history of your Mac that could result in software compatibility issues.

Originally Posted by ryck
Available tools are: Original installation disks, original Snow Leopard disk.
A 16GB thumb drive costs less than $9 USD with overnight or even same day delivery.

Originally Posted by ryck
On the first go round, the original install disks then had two consecutive on-line updates. I now wonder if they are suspect. i.e. if Apple doesn’t keep some major upgrades, why would they keep old updates?
You are very unlikely to find them if they exist at all.

Originally Posted by ryck
How big a jump can I actually make from the original install disks? Although the advice is that the size of the jump shouldn’t matter, every upgrade has minimum system requirements.
Any limits are hardware based and the system requirements are:
Originally Posted by Mactracker
El Capitan: iMac (Mid 2007 or newer), or MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer), or MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer), or Xserve (Early 2009), or MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer), or Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer), or Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer), 2 GB of memory, 8.8 GB of available disk space, and OS X v10.6.8 or later

Sierra: Mac (Late 2009 or newer), or MacBook (Late 2009 or newer), or MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or newer), or MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer), or Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer), or Mac Pro (Mid 2010 or newer), 2 GB of memory, 8.8 GB of available disk space, and OS X v10.7.5 or later


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
joemikeb #59888 11/10/21 05:32 PM
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OVERLOOKED FACT

No macOS installer will install over a subsequent version macOS In other words if you have macOS 10.12.6 on your system, you can reinstall macOS 10.12.6 or install macOS 10.13 or later but you cannot install macOS 10.12.5 or earlier unless you nuke & pave. Normally the installer will report the error and stop but this probably the reason for your failed install attempts. To go backwards from the currently installed version you must completely erase the drive first, which can only be done from another computer, a bootable thumb drive installer, or bootable external drive. (Note: in Big Sur and Monterey on M1 Macs you need a second computer and Apple Configurator 2)

Last edited by joemikeb; 11/10/21 05:47 PM. Reason: Posting glitch

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
joemikeb #59897 11/11/21 11:46 AM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
OBSERVATION: The desktop image is immaterial and not a reliable indicator of the currently installed version of MacOS. I use a custom desktop and it has survived Big Sur and Monterey upgrades and innumerable updates unchanged. The reliable indicator of the currently installed OS version is found in the Apple Menu > About This Mac.
A custom desktop image is perpetuated via a pref pane. The default Apple desktop image will change along with the OS. (ryck's desktop image is consistent with "About This Mac.")

Aside: My original "Personally, I'd be leery about turning the kids lose on that iMac as it stands. frown " changed to "Personally, I'd be leery about turning the kids lose on that iMac as it stands. frown," i.e. the smiley turned to text. I wonder if it goes hand in hand with the emoji issue you reported yesterday?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59898 11/11/21 11:57 AM
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Originally Posted by ryck
Given I do not have the Thumb Drive or spare bootable drive....
This is a longshot, but have you got the appropriate cables to access the 2008 in FireWire target disk mode with the 2017?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
joemikeb #59899 11/11/21 12:04 PM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
No macOS installer will install over a subsequent version macOS
That's not an issue here, because in his OP, ryck said "I recently had to wipe a drive...."

Hmmm... That's got me wondering how he wiped that drive? Disk Utility on the Snowy disk, I guess?

But he's said "...wouldn’t my original installation disks fully erase the drive before installing," which suggests that he maybe actually managed to run the Snowy installer over the 10.11.6 that was on the iMac.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
artie505 #59900 11/11/21 03:04 PM
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Originally Posted by artie505
But he's said "...wouldn’t my original installation disks fully erase the drive before installing," which suggests that he maybe actually managed to run the Snowy installer over the 10.11.6 that was on the iMac.
Here's the process and the why. The machine was not performing correctly, particularly with Bluetooth, in a number of ways. I thought it'd be an opportunity to fix Bluetooth and make the machine 'strictly for the grandkids' by getting rid of any trace of my old emails and other data. I figured a 'start from scratch' with the original install disks would do it, and assumed an original disk install would erase the drive first.

1. Installed system and apps with original disks. OS 10.5.4
2. Installed two online updates to OS 10.5.4
3. Installed Snow Leopard from original disk. OS 10.6
4. Updated Snow Leopard to OS 10.6.8
5. Various attempts to install Lion. Mountain Lion, Yosemite et cetera but machine remains at 10.6.8

Originally Posted by artie505
This is a longshot, but have you got the appropriate cables to access the 2008 in FireWire target disk mode with the 2017?
No. I suppose it could have been a way to use my newer DiskWarrior.

Last edited by ryck; 11/11/21 03:13 PM.

ryck

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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59902 11/11/21 04:39 PM
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Originally Posted by ryck
Originally Posted by artie505
This is a longshot, but have you got the appropriate cables to access the 2008 in FireWire target disk mode with the 2017?
No. I suppose it could have been a way to use my newer DiskWarrior.

It could also be a way of running Disk Utility to erase the drive on your 2008 Mac (being carful to choose the right drive) and then run say the El Capitan installer (again being careful to choose the right drive).


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
joemikeb #59911 11/11/21 10:09 PM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
It could also be a way of running Disk Utility to erase the drive on your 2008 Mac (being carful to choose the right drive) and then run say the El Capitan installer (again being careful to choose the right drive).
Not necessary. I found my TechTool 6 disk and it booted the machine, and is currently wiping the drive....looks like it'll be a while.

So, since the drive will be totally wiped, should I start with my original Snow Leopard, then go to the El Capitan upgrade with no steps between?


ryck

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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59912 11/11/21 10:18 PM
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Why not start with El Capitan?


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
joemikeb #59913 11/11/21 10:33 PM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
Why not start with El Capitan?
I assume I can't download it from the Apple site to the machine (totally blank drive) without an existing system.


ryck

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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59915 11/11/21 11:48 PM
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Originally Posted by ryck
I assume I can't download it from the Apple site to the machine (totally blank drive) without an existing system.
Interesting turn of events....although I put the Snow Leopard disk into the drive, the install option went straight to El Capitan 10.11, so I guess there's no need for going through a series of installs. The only thing I had to do after the TechTool data wipe, was to use DiskTools (available on the Snow Leopard disk) to format the drive.

If the audio volume Fn keys don't work after all this, I'll be mightily peeved.

Edit: Crap! After all that the message is now "OX could not be installed on your computer. No packages were available for install. and blah, blah, blah. So, I guess I'll be starting with the original install disks and going from there.

Last edited by ryck; 11/12/21 12:00 AM.

ryck

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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59916 11/12/21 01:06 AM
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Originally Posted by ryck
So, I guess I'll be starting with the original install disks and going from there.
The attempt to install El Capitan changed the drive to something called "Installation Volume" (as I recall) and, although the first of the original install disks was inserted, the machine booted as Installation Volume. So, I rebooted with the Option key and for the original disk install, chose erase and install....just in case. We'll see what happens.

Last edited by ryck; 11/12/21 01:07 AM.

ryck

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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59918 11/12/21 11:45 AM
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Originally Posted by ryck
We'll see what happens.
AAAAAARGH!

1. Clean install (erase and install) of original installation disks.
2. Two updates to that system
3. Tried to install El Capitan from Apple site, took a very long time to determine it would not install
4. Tried to install Yosemite from Apple site, ditto above
5. Installed Snow Leopard
6. Attempted to install El Capitan from Apple site, failed
7. Attempted to install Yosemite from Apple site, was advised the installation was successful

However, I am back where I originally started. About this Mac says OS 10.5.8 with the Snow Leopard desktop. And the Volume Control Fn keys still don't work.


ryck

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Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
ryck #59919 11/12/21 01:02 PM
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I think "AAARGH!!!" is an understatement at this point. frown

#s 2 & 3 are expected, because the earliest version of OS X that can be upgraded to either Yosemite or El Cap is Snowy.

After that, I'm at a loss other than to say that it's time for you to either click on joemike's Amazon link and buy a thumb drive or
  1. Wipe your OTG,
  2. clone 10.6.8 onto it from your iMac,
  3. boot your iMac from the clone,
  4. d/l the El Cap installer from Apple onto the OTG,
  5. erase the iMac with DU,
  6. run the El Cap installer,

and if that doesn't get you to where you want to go...


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
artie505 #59920 11/12/21 01:33 PM
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The bootable thumb drive has the advantage that it boots only a minute subset of macOS, just enough to run DU and the installer, which eliminates version conflicts. Just saying...


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
joemikeb #59921 11/12/21 02:11 PM
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Good point, and at this juncture, every little bit may be the missing, critical one.

Things apparently went wrong earlier because ryck began this exercise by overwriting El Cap with Snowy without erasing it first.

But I don't see any reason why his last venture should have failed.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Keyboard audio volume keys not working
artie505 #59923 11/12/21 04:28 PM
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Originally Posted by artie505
But I don't see any reason why his last venture should have failed.

I don't either. At this point I have a lot more questions than I have answers. confused


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
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