[Mega-Merge] Snow Leopard - Installation Experiences & Problems

**Back2Bedlam** · 28th August 2009, 12:20 AM

Apple's Snow Leopard disc will allow a clean install

Though users of older Intel-based Macs were led to believe they would have to spend $169 to migrate from Tiger to Snow Leopard, new reports state the $29 upgrade disc will work just fine.

In his review of Snow Leopard, Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, Mossberg reveals that those who have been hesitant to upgrade their Mac will be able to take advantage of Snow Leopard's bargain price, without the need to install the intermediate Leopard operating system first.

"For owners of Intel-based Macs who are still using the older Tiger version of the Mac OS, Apple is officially making Snow Leopard available only in a "boxed set" that includes other software and costs $169," Mossberg said. "The reasoning is that these folks never paid the $129 back in 2007 to upgrade to Leopard. But here’s a tip: Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140."

Wired also confirmed that they were able to upgrade a system directly from Tiger to Snow Leopard. In addition, it is possible to completely erase a hard drive and install Snow Leopard without a pre-existing operating system in place, enabling users to bypass the possible headaches of an upgrade and go with a clean install instead. Wired said many users upgrading from Tiger should probably consider backing up their files from Tiger and doing a clean install instead.

"Of course, the transition isn’t guaranteed to be as smooth as it would be from Leopard to Snow Leopard," the report said of the Tiger to Snow Leopard upgrade, "and that’s because some older, Tiger-only third-party applications need to be upgraded to newer versions that work with Leopard or Snow Leopard."

**NeoRicen** · 28th August 2009, 12:23 AM

Who's even still using Tiger that cares enough to want to upgrade to Snow Leopard?

**Back2Bedlam** · 28th August 2009, 12:26 AM

Originally Posted by NeoRicen

Who's even still using Tiger that cares enough to want to upgrade to Snow Leopard?

Have you read the article properly, it has more to do with being able to install SL from a clean drive, one that doesn't need to have Leopard Installed to do a clean install.

There are heaps of people out there that are still on Tiger.

**Devil rolla** · 28th August 2009, 10:18 AM

Very cool, and also adobe Photoshop cs, cs2, cs3 and 4 run on SL as reported by macnews. Booyah.

**Keljian** · 28th August 2009, 02:40 PM

Just so as you know, I found rosetta on the SL dvd under optional installs.

It seems to work fine with the ppc software I have..

**paulmcdowall** · 28th August 2009, 03:52 PM

I have a 9 month old MacBook - 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4Gb RAM, 300Gb HDD with 92Gb free. Currently on 10.5.8.

I have 2 x Snow Leopard Installer DVDs here fresh off the TNT truck. As soon as I try to install it (before the thing even restarts), I get an error which states:

"Mac OS X cannot be installed on "HD" because this disk cannot be used to start up your computer."

WTF? This is my boot drive that the machine IS started up from. Happens with both install DVDs.

Anyone?

**rmac** · 28th August 2009, 03:54 PM

i think you now install it while booted into your OS.

**Geoff3DMN** · 28th August 2009, 03:55 PM

Have you tried running disk utility and repairing (or at least verifying) permissions on your hard drive?

*edit*

Just read the above post... didn't realize the OP wasn't booted into Leopard already.

**spuds_imac** · 28th August 2009, 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by richthomas

i think you now install it while booted into your OS.

This is correct start your Laptop then put the Snow Leopard disk in.

**paulmcdowall** · 28th August 2009, 03:58 PM

I've booted directly off the Snow Leopard DVD, run Disk Utility, repaired the disk - which needed no repairs.

Whether I insert the disk while booted under 10.5.8 and run the installer, or, simply reboot with the "C" key held down, the installer will not install because it reckons my hard drive cannot be used to start up my MacBook. Even though, of course, it's been happily booting my Macbook for the last 9 months.

I can't customise the installer, so I can't even tell it to erase and install a shiny fresh OS.

This is just weird.

**DrCarlo** · 28th August 2009, 04:00 PM

I have the same system you do and it worked a charm.

Do you have the original HDD?

**rmac** · 28th August 2009, 04:02 PM

try restarting holding command-option-P-R until the second louder boot chime to reset your PRAM.

**W9cae** · 28th August 2009, 04:13 PM

Is you hard drive formatted with GUID or ?

**paulmcdowall** · 28th August 2009, 04:34 PM

Thanks for the replies. OK, I've tried, repairing the disk by booting off the Snow Leopard DVD, using Disk Utility to repair the disk (no problems). Same error.

Reset PRAM, multiple times. Same error.

Renamed my hard disk - it was named "hd". Thought, maybe it has an issue with a short HDD name. Renamed to "Macintosh HD". Same error.

I have the original HDD that shipped with the MacBook. It's formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journalled) and partitioned into 1 partition (no Boot Camp) using GUID Partition Table.

Bizarre thing is the installer insists the HDD cannot be used to boot this Mac, but then if I go to the Utilities Menu and choose Startup Disk (this is after booting off the Snow Leopard installer DVD) the Startup Disk utility happily lets me select the HDD to boot from. So 10.6 Startup Disk is happy, but the installer isn't?!

Getting to the point where I think I'll have to erase everything, reinstall Leopard so it's pristine, and then try the upgrade. Unless anyone has any other great ideas?

**mallo** · 28th August 2009, 04:39 PM

I'm pretty sure This has been covered, but just to double check.

Have you tried not booting of the Snow Leopard DVD?

Just let Leopard load up as usual, then once you've booted up, stick in your Snow Leopard install and see what happens....?

**W9cae** · 28th August 2009, 04:42 PM

I would try to erase & format the drive then install Snow Leopard.

**W9cae** · 28th August 2009, 04:45 PM

Originally Posted by dappleone

As a point of interest, I had difficulty with SL not installing on one of my Macs because I had used the HD as a Time Machine backup at some time in the past.

This required that I remove the Backups folder before I could install. Apple support confirmed this for me.

Cheers

Taken from here:
http://forums.mactalk.com.au/46/7223...w-leopard.html

**paulmcdowall** · 28th August 2009, 04:50 PM

Yep, tried booting directly off the DVD, and booting 10.5.8 on the internal HDD, inserting DVD and running the Install Mac OS application.

No matter what I do, I keep getting the error about the drive not being able to boot Mac OS X.

The drive has never been used as a time machine backup. It's only ever been used as a boot drive for the Macbook. It shipped with 10.5.3 (I think) and has only ever been upgraded using Combo updaters.

I see a total erase and reinstall in my future.

**Huy** · 28th August 2009, 04:51 PM

Sounds like you need GUID.

The Mac OS X installer prevents you from installing on to a disk that uses a non-native partition scheme (or to any volumes on that disk). PowerPC-based Macs and Intel-based Macs have different native partition schemes (see additional information below).

"You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume..." alert in Installer

**paulmcdowall** · 28th August 2009, 04:56 PM

The internal HDD is partitioned as GUID.

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[Mega-Merge] Snow Leopard - Installation Experiences & Problems

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