Can I get Mountain Lion on a MacBook?

Question

I own a MacBook which I purchased approximately 6 years ago (I'm not sure exactly what version it is, but I can get that information if needed). It is running OS X Leopard, and I want to install Mountain Lion onto it.

Is this possible? If so, how? If not, what is the most recent OS I can get on the system?

Answer 1

Probably not. The system requirements for 10.8 say "MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)". You'd also need to install 10.6.8 or 10.7 first in order to install Mountain Lion from App Store.

See these Apple KB articles:

• System requirements for OS X Mountain Lion
• System requirements for OS X Lion and Mac OS X v10.6
• How to identify MacBook models

EveryMac.com has a list of maximum OS X versions supported by different Macs:

• http://www.everymac.com/systems/by_capability/maximum-macos-supported.html
• http://www.everymac.com/mac-answers/os-x-lion-faq/macs-compatible-with-os-x-lion-hack-options-for-incompatible-macs.html

Answer 2

Some older MacBooks are supported by MLPostFactor, although even then they want you to install 10.7 (Lion) first. Upgrading has enough pitfalls that I would recommend not skipping major OS versions anyway, meaning upgrading to Snow Leopard then Lion then Mountain Lion.

However, if your MacBook is supported by Mountain Lion and you want to risk upgrading in one operation, you can create a bootable Mountain Lion USB drive and install from that.