Unable to boot older Macbooks with updated NBI

[mrperrott]

Just to give a little background...

We just updated our NBI for our Netboot servers using AutoCasper NBI w/ OS X 10.12.3 as the base OS image.

Just ran into an issue with a tech trying to image a Mid 2009 Macbook Pro. Now I know that MacOS Sierra is not compatible with this model.

Is there anyone else that has an issue like this in their environment? What solution did you use to Image older devices?

What I am really asking is, is there an alternative to having to possibly boot these older models from a Casper Image USB?

Thank you in advance for any input.

[dan-snelson · Accepted solution]

@mrperrott Offering multiple NetBoot Images works for us. If you're using NetSUS, you'll want to review NetSUS Multiple NetBoot Images.

[canopimp]

@dan.snelson is correct, you need to hold onto some of your old OS Netboot NBI images. If we run into this, we load up an old one on a netboot server or a thumb drive. Just save them to a network share or a backup drive for safe keeping. It is also good measure to keep the old OS installers and DMG's in your DP's so once you can netboot a box, you can image it with an appropriate OS.

[tthurman]

I'm assuming you don't have a ton of these devices in your environment.

My recommendation would be to use AutoCasperNBI to create the NBI's and create a restorable DMG that can be restored to a flash drive.

Create one with 10.11.6 and restore it to a flash drive for these models.

You can set it up to still pull from your DP's over the network, just the initial boot to be from the flash drive instead of Netboot.

Regards,
TJ