gbeberman

Q: Install disk for iMac won't install

I have a Mid-2011 iMac which I'm prepping for resale.  It had been upgraded to Lion.  But, I believe, no further.  I cleared the drive and wanted to reinstall the OS and apps.  Installing from the DVD got me the grey screen problem.  So, I booted into Snow Leopard (the OS it shipped with) from an external drive.  Then I tried to install the OS from the DVD which came with the machine.  I got the message: 

 

  mac os x snow leopard cannot be installed on this computer

 

How is that possible?  It was the install disk for this computer.  What can I do? 

 

I tried just installing Lion.  That went fine.  But, I couldn't install the apps which came with the machine.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

Posted on Oct 23, 2014 11:54 AM

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Q: Install disk for iMac won't install

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  • by Gary Scotland,

    Gary Scotland Gary Scotland Oct 23, 2014 12:23 PM in response to gbeberman
    Level 6 (14,437 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 23, 2014 12:23 PM in response to gbeberman

    I cleared the drive

    With the Mac is booted from the install disc, go to Utilities and partition the hard drive as a single partition.

    Once this is done you should be able to run the installer.

  • by gbeberman,

    gbeberman gbeberman Oct 23, 2014 1:24 PM in response to Gary Scotland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2014 1:24 PM in response to Gary Scotland

    Gary:

     

    Thanks for the suggestion.  The iMac's internal drive had already been repartitioned (as a single partition).  That's how I cleared it.'

     

    And, the iMac won't boot off of the DVD.  I don't know why.  It starts to.  Then it gets to the Apple logo and stop.  I have left it that way for hours.  No progress.  This is a problem that has been documented (Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup).  And I have followed most of the recommendations to address that (I just realized that I didn't try the safe boot).  No go.  That's why I created an external boot drive.

     

    Any more ideas?

  • by Gary Scotland,

    Gary Scotland Gary Scotland Oct 24, 2014 3:29 AM in response to gbeberman
    Level 6 (14,437 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 24, 2014 3:29 AM in response to gbeberman

    I rephrase from the earlier post. 

    If the USB drive can boot the Mac, go to Utilities > Disc Utility and erase the hard drive.

    Then try reinstalling from the installer on the USB drive.

  • by gbeberman,

    gbeberman gbeberman Oct 24, 2014 10:58 AM in response to Gary Scotland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 24, 2014 10:58 AM in response to Gary Scotland

    Thanks again.  I did erase the hard drive.  Then, I booted from an external FW800 drive with Snow Leopard on it (the OS on the DVD)

     

    I'm looking for a good way to run the installer from the USB drive.  I tried creating a DMG and a .toast file of the DVD.  When I tried to run the installer on those "fake" drives, I got a message saying it needed to be run from the DVD.

     

    And I have run it from the DVD (I just can't boot from the DVD).  That's how I got the "mac os x snow leopard cannot be installed on this computer" message.  I believe that message is supposed to come up when the install disk either when (a) computer requires a newer version of the operating system (e.g. the release of Snow Leopard preceded the release of the computer) or (b) the DVD is designed for a different kind of computer.

     

    What's weird is that this IS the DVD for this computer.  It is the only iMac which we have every owned (until three days ago when we bought one which didn't come with a disk).

  • by babowa,Solvedanswer

    babowa babowa Oct 24, 2014 11:20 AM in response to gbeberman
    Level 7 (32,117 points)
    iPad
    Oct 24, 2014 11:20 AM in response to gbeberman

    What were you booted from when you erased the hard drive? You should not erase it first and then try to boot from the install disk because - since you said Lion was able to be installed - the hidden recovery partition is still there so it will not allow an earlier OS.

     

    FWIW, you cannot sell it with Lion installed as any OS or app obtained at the app store is tied to the original Apple ID forever, but they're also not transferable. The new owner would never be able to update apps or reinstall the OS.

     

    So, did you try inserting the DVD and then hitting the C key while restarting or the Option key while restarting? Will either of those allow you to choose the install disk?

     

    If that does not work (I've seen several posts regarding this issue - you might want to do a search here), then see if you can do a clean install of the Snow leopard disk on an external. Once that is done, plug in the external drive, choose to boot from it, install CCC or SuperDuper, then use that Disk utility to erase your internal drive (again), and then use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone that entire system back. That works as I've tested that several times.

  • by gbeberman,

    gbeberman gbeberman Oct 24, 2014 12:39 PM in response to babowa
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 24, 2014 12:39 PM in response to babowa

    Ahhhhh.  The recovery partition!!!  I think that explains a lot!  Thank you.

     

    The computer would not boot from the DVD (grey screen problem with link in my original post . . . couldn't get past it despite many recommendations from Apple).  I did have a commercial version of Snow Leopard (from before the iMac was released) which I installed on an external drive and updated.  After making sure the iMac would boot, I used SuperDuper to copy over that drive to the internal drive on the computer.  Now it boots (BTW, it looks like the recovery partition was wiped away by SuperDuper.  It wasn't there as a boot drive choice after I had copied the external drive)

     

    All of that is great.  Now I have one more problem which probably belongs in a different thread: The bundled application disk won't install either.  It says:

     

       You cannot install this software on this computer.

     

    I feel like I must have the wrong disks even though these are the only disks I ever could have had.  The copyright on the install disk was 2010 even though my computer is from 2011.  It says it has 10.6.4 on it.  I don't know if that supported the iMac12,1 or if the bundled software can only be installed through (or on top of) the machine's installer disk.  This whole thing is frustrating.

     

    But, now I have a clean, working machine I can resell.  It would be better if it had Pages, et al on it.  But, I'm not sure that's worth the hassle.

     

    Thanks for the help!

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Oct 24, 2014 2:05 PM in response to gbeberman
    Level 7 (32,117 points)
    iPad
    Oct 24, 2014 2:05 PM in response to gbeberman

    The licensing issues got real murky (aka complicated) after they went to digital download only as anything obtained at the app store is not transferable and tied to the original Apple ID. So, the system throws up all sorts of ..... If Pages et al was bundled, then no, I don't think it would install as that is filed under the "non-transferable" category I believe. If you had a retail iWork/iLife disk, you should be able to install them (but must include the disks when selling). You may have the wrong disks as well: mine came with 10.6.4 (2010) and so I can't use the retail version as that is 10.6.3. I'll post a screenshot at the end of build/OS numbers.

     

    I did a fair amount of testing on a 2010 iMac (purchased refurb in 2012) with Lion installed and the machine specific SL disks with it. I initially wiped the drive and reinstalled Snow Leopard. I updated the firmware at some point to allow recovery and, from what I've read, that is what is preventing you from being able to reinstall with the SL disk. I know I have the right disks because they worked initially, but I can no longer use them to boot from. So, I rely on bootable clones (which I prefer anyway).

     

    Screen Shot 2014-10-24 at 2.03.13 PM.png

     

    From this:

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1159#iMac