Upgrade a MacBook 2009 from OS X Mavericks

Hey dj-dani,

there should be a way to upgrade on native MacOS El Capitan 10.11.6, but it might get wee bit "tricky".

Download El Capitan.dmg form the linked Apple Support page below using Safari ❗️

How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support (CA)

drag the dmg to the desktop, double click on it, run pkg (ports the El Capitan installer to the program folder) and exit.

Make sure El Capitan installer properly placed in the program folder

so start Installation from here ❗️.

Seeing this menu

on top of the screen --> Utilities --> choose and start Terminal --> type in the following command/copy&paste works

date 080815002016 (note the space after date) confirm with the return key and exit from terminal.

The command only changes the system date, without changing El Capitan very often refuses installation!

Proceeding

erase your Macintosh HD with FPDP (tagged) (extended journaled, GUID partition table), which will of course irretrievably delete all data on the drive, or just check your boot drive with FPDP ("First Aid") and repair if necessary...

then click "reinstall OS X" which will either install El Capitan as „clean install“ or will copy El Capitan over your current MacOS Mavericks.

After ± 40 minutes

MacOS El Capitan should be ready to get startet 😉

If you want to upgrade to more recent MacOS, e.g. up to MacOS Monterey, just google "High Sierra patcher", "Mojave patcher", "Catalina patcher" or "OpenCore legacy patcher"...on special pages you will get instructions on how to install a patched MacOS, a system, in other words, which Apple has declared no longer compatible with the type or model year of your Mac but which has been designed by expert users to run on "incompatible" computers.

These more recent MacOS are much more comfortable than El Capitan but they will demand on hardware of your MacBook which will result in some clearly noticeable losses in speed, which, however, can be partly avoided by installation of the patched MacOS to a modern and fast internal SATA SSD (e.g.)

from which your computer will boot very much faster than from a technical obsolet mechanical internal SATA HDD; the replacement is quite easy and can be completed in less than 30 minutes.

However ❗️, you should not tackle these installations if you are not familiar with the hardware and software of your Mac.

Cheers

Manfred

What specific Mac Model do you have? Click on the apple logo at the left corner/ about this Mac and search for a software update