longtimemacuser666

Q: Install 10.11.6  El Capitán with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on old Mac Pro 4,2 multi-boot?

Looking for knowledgeable advice here...  I have an old Mac Pro 4,2 (Cheese Grater) that's running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.  This is a wonderful, workhorse machine that has served me tirelessly for many years.  It's obviously older and slower now, but works great.  I like 10.6.8.  If Apple ever refreshes the Mac Pro line (I know, not likely...sigh...), I'll buy one and replace this machine.  Until then, I want to make this work.

 

This machine is a beast, has been upgraded with three 1-TB internal hard drives (it's also got a couple legacy internal HDs of 750 and 500 MB used for storage).  I've also got multiple FW800 external drives from 1 to 4 TB plugged in, too.  Oodles of storage, obviously, and should be plenty of options for booting into multiple systems.

 

I'm generally happy with 10.6.8 on this machine, although there are obvious limits to that.  I'd like to get one or two newer OSes on it, pick-and-choose between them as needed, but I absolutely want/need to preserve the ability to boot into and run 10.6.8 routinely as my day-to-day OS, at least for now.  Maybe I'll warm to one of the others on this machine eventually, but 10.6.8 has got to remain usable, installing a newer OS on other drives can't nerf it.

 

About a year-and-a-half ago, I took a run at installing 10.10.3 Yosemite on one of the internal drives.  That did not work out well.  I got Yosemite installed, sniffed around a bit, didn't really like it much, and went to reboot and switch back to 10.6.8 for a bit.  That initially was impossible (at least via what I expected would be the same old process I've always used, via System Preferences > Startup Disk).  You can read details of that experience here and more here if you're interested.  That last attempt to get Yosemite on this machine was a pretty negative experience.  Yosemite is still there on one internal HD, but I have not attempted to boot back onto it since then.

 

Now I'm taking another look at all this.  What's driving this now is that I want to update my iPad Mini 3 to iOS 10.  But that (updating an iDevice to iOS 10) requires iTunes 12.5.1.  And iTunes 12.5.1 requires Mac OS X 10.9.5 or newer - it won't work with 10.6.8.  So I'm looking at my options.

 

Right now, I have three large internal HDs: HD#1, HD#2 and HD#3, each 1 TB.

HD#1 has 10.10.3 Yosemite on it.  I booted off this once, and have not gone back since.

HD#2 has 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on it.  This is my primary OS and every-day boot drive.

HD#3 has nothing special on it.

 

Although HD#1 has Yosemite on it, I've only booted off that drive once, and am hesitant to go there again, at least until I can get an easy and reliable path back to rebooting off of HD#2.

 

I understand I can also get 10.11.6  El Capitán.  I was thinking of installing that on HD#3.  That sounds like a reasonable option to add, but once again, I want to ensure that doing that won't cause problems switching back to boot off of HD#2 in Snow Leopard (like installing Yosemite on HD#1 did).

 

What's the best way for me to go about this safely - preserving the option to easily boot into 10.6.8 on HD#2?

 

Thanks for the help!

Posted on Sep 15, 2016 2:24 PM

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Q: Install 10.11.6  El Capitán with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on old Mac Pro 4,2 multi-boot?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by den.thed,

    den.thed den.thed Sep 15, 2016 2:39 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 7 (27,560 points)
    Sep 15, 2016 2:39 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    If you startup or restart holding the Option (Alt) key and invoke the Startup Manager, you should be given the choice to startup from any OS X startup disk on any one of the drives.

     

    see >  How to choose a startup disk on your Mac - Apple Support

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 15, 2016 2:47 PM in response to den.thed
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 15, 2016 2:47 PM in response to den.thed

    Thank you (and, BTW, I recall you were very helpful when I first ran into this problem a year-and-a-half ago, glad to see you are still here and contributing ).

     

    I agree, that's how I think it's supposed to work.  However, what I found last time was that:

    If (after booting into Yosemite) I restart the machine, and hold down the Option key, the Startup Manager does appear.  It lists several drives.  But my primary internal drive (HD#2, with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on it) is not listed among them.

    Last time I had to dig out my old Snow Leopard installation DVD and boot off that.  Then, I was able to pick HD#2 with Snow Leopard on it and reboot to that.  But when I had booted off HD#1 with Yosemite, then restarted holding down the Option key, HD#2 with Snow Leopard was not listed as a boot option.  Which I found disturbing.

     

    I suppose I can try again...(he said, nervously thinking if he could afford to spend the rest of the day wrestling with this issue...hmmm, maybe this weekend...).

  • by den.thed,Helpful

    den.thed den.thed Sep 15, 2016 6:00 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 7 (27,560 points)
    Sep 15, 2016 6:00 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    As a simple test try going to the Startup Manager right now and see what startup volumes are available.

     

    If you currentlly have 10.6.8 on one drive and 10.10 on another drive, then you should get at least three Options in the Startup Manager to startup from.

    1. a Macintosh HD for 10.6.8

    2. a Macintosh HD for 10.10.x

    3. and a Recovery Partition that is associated with 10.10

     

    The tricky part here is disguising the 10.6 one from the 10.10 one. Which can be easily done by slightly changing or adding to the name of one or the other. 

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 15, 2016 6:13 PM in response to den.thed
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 15, 2016 6:13 PM in response to den.thed

    Yes. Currently running off the 10.6.8 drive.  Upon restart, and holding down Option to bring up Startup Manager, it offers:

    1. "Alpha" (this is the drive with 10.10.3 on it)

    2. "Bravo" (this is the drive with 10.6.8 on it)

    3. "Recovery 10.10.3" (which I assume is the recovery partition hidden on "Alpha")

    (As you can guess, the three 1 TB internal drives are named Alpha, Bravo and Charlie...Charlie is empty)

     

    If (when booted from 10.6.8) I just go into Preferences > Startup Disk, it offers:

    1. Mac OS X, 10.6.8 on Bravo

    2. Mac OS X, 10.10.3 on Alpha

    3. Network Startup (which is not applicable in this case)

     

    The above all makes sense.  I can see it's clearly daring me to boot off of 10.10.3 again.  Time for me to locate my original Snow Leopard DVD, I think...  Last time I booted off 10.10.3, I needed that to enable the option to boot from Bravo (10.6.8).

     

    I take it that under 10.10.3, it won't offer up 10.6.8 as an option in System Preferences > Startup Disk...correct?  But it *should* offer the 10.6.8 option on restart with Startup Manager invoked...even though it didn't last time.

  • by den.thed,

    den.thed den.thed Sep 15, 2016 7:31 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 7 (27,560 points)
    Sep 15, 2016 7:31 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    Not sure why Bravo (10.6.8) would not show up in the Startup Manager after booting into the Alpha (10.10.x) drive, they both always should..?

     

    Hmm..... perhaps you need to Prevent Spotlight in 10.10.x from indexing the Bravo (10.6.8) drive by adding it to the "Prevent Spotlight from searching these locations" list as soon as your started up in 10.10.x.

    http://osxdaily.com/2011/12/30/exclude-drives-or-folders-from-spotlight-index-ma c-os-x/

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 15, 2016 9:39 PM in response to den.thed
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 15, 2016 9:39 PM in response to den.thed

    OK, making some progress here...

    I rebooted, held down Option, in Startup Manager I chose the Alpha drive with 10.10.3 Yosemite.  It started up OK. It seems to be acting as I would expect, but with some unexpected permissions behaviors: if I pull up System Prefs > Startup Disk (under 10.10.3), it *does* list both 10.10.3 on Alpha and 10.6.8 on Bravo - good.  But I was surprised to see that 10.6.8 on Bravo was not only listed, it was selected, and when I clicked on 10.10.3 on Alpha, that was grayed out, it popped a permissions dialog:

     

    "System Preferences is trying to modify your settings. Type an Administrator's name and password to allow this."  I entered my name and password, and it rejected the credentials: "You can't change the startup disk to the selected disk (insufficient permissions)."

     

    I had entered the only Name & Password I've ever used on this Mac.  It isn't taking them.

     

    I then restarted and held down the Option key to pull up Startup Manager.  There, to my relief, I *was* able to select 10.6.8 on Bravo (it also allowed me to select 10.10.3 on Alpha).  Booted back into 10.6.8 successfully.  After rebooting in 10.6.8, it does allow me to change the startup disk to 10.10.3.

     

    Is this all expected behavior?  Why is it rejecting my credentials in 10.10.3?

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 15, 2016 10:01 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 15, 2016 10:01 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    So there seems to be some permissions issue.  When I'm booted into 10.6.8, I can selected either system as the startup disk.  That "sticks" - that is, in 10.6.8 if I select the 10.10.3 drive as my startup disk, it will startup from the 10.10.3 drive as I would expect, and if I restart it will keep booting from 10.10.3.  That make sense.  However, once I've booted from the 10.10.3 drive, I am unable to choose 10.6.8 as the startup disk from within Preferences > Startup Disk.  It tells me I don't have adequate privileges to make that change.  If I invoke Startup Manager (Option key on startup), then I can switch to 10.6.8 - and once there, I'm free to choose either disk in Prefs > Startup disk.  If I just switch to boot off of 10.10.3 using Startup Manager, 10.6.8 remains the selected boot drive - I can't change it in Prefs > Startup Disk.  Hmmm.

     

    So, the good news is that I can easily switch to booting off the 10.10.3 drive, and there's now a reliable (if slightly kludgey) way to get back to booting off 10.6.8 after I have done that.

     

    The bad news is that once booted into 10.10.3, the OS does not recognize my account as an Admin - it sees me as just a "Standard" user (in Users & Groups, that's how my account appears - and there's no other account listed there).  That, I assume, is why it won't let me change the startup disk.  That seems problematic.

     

    I'm almost ready to try installing 10.11.6 El Cap on the third internal 1 TB drive (Charlie), but before I go there, I want to fix the permissions issue in 10.10.3 (since it'll probably copy permissions when I do the install, eh?).  Any suggestions on how to accomplish that?

     

    Thanks!

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 16, 2016 2:56 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 16, 2016 2:56 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    More details on this...

    It appears the accounts/permissions are messed up.  In System Prefs > Users & Groups, I see only one User: Me (my name).  However, that account is listed as a "Standard" user, not an Admin.  There's no Admin account listed at all (in fact, no other account).  I have always been the Admin (and only user) for this machine, it's in my home in a secure location, I want minimal intrusions for logins and passwords.

     

    Not only am I currently prohibited from changing the Startup Disk, I also can't install any apps, which makes it pretty useless.

     

    I don't know how this got in this state - when I installed 10.10.3, I would expect it to copy the accounts (and permissions) from the 10.6.8 drive.  Or if I was offered the option to set up an Admin account, I would have given that to myself.  In any case, right now there is no Admin account at all, and my account is crippled as a "Standard" account.

     

    What's the best way for me to change my "Standard" account into the Admin for this system?  I've installed nothing on the 10.10.3 drive, I can blow it away and do a clean reinstall of 10.10.3 if that's the simplest way to go - assuming it's still available (I just want to ensure that doesn't mess with the 10.6.8 installation on the other drive).

     

    Thanks again for the assistance!!!

  • by den.thed,Helpful

    den.thed den.thed Sep 16, 2016 7:44 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 7 (27,560 points)
    Sep 16, 2016 7:44 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    I would startup from the Recovery Partition, wipe the Alpha 10.10.x drive and start over. Because you already purchased 10.10 (for free) using your App Store account, it should still be available to you in your Purchased section. If it is not, then there is not a lot of difference between 10.10 and 10.11.

     

    Again it should not in anyway effect the 10.6.8 drive.

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 16, 2016 7:55 PM in response to den.thed
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 16, 2016 7:55 PM in response to den.thed

    OK, thanks, just to be clear (I'm paranoid...), let me see if I have all the details right...

    I'm currently running off HD#2 "Bravo" with 10.6.8...

    Restart, invoke Startup Manager via Option key

    In Startup Manager, select the 10.10.3 Recovery Partition (presumably hidden on HD#1 "Alpha") and boot off that.

    You say "wipe the Alpha drive and start over."  By that I think you mean, after rebooting off the Recovery Partition, then launch the Disk Utility included with 10.10.3 - or will the installer automatically launch after I reboot off the recovery partition and it will offer me the option of what, erasing the HD?  Just want to be sure I get the sequence and source right (when I think of wiping a drive, I'd typically launch Disk Utility).

    Then, after the drive has been "wiped", should the OS installer auto-launch?

    Once the 10.10.3 installer has launched, I assume there will be clear options (ie "Clean Install" or something similar), yes?

    Finally, what should I look for to ensure it picks up the right account permissions (me, as an Admin)?  Should it prompt me for that during the install, or will it grab that from the 10.6.8. installation?

     

    Sorry for being obsessive, I just want to ensure I get it right and do it once.

     

    Many thanks again for all your help!!!

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 16, 2016 8:55 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 16, 2016 8:55 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    Oh yeah, one last thing: I assume I will be presented with the option to choose a target for the re-installation...

  • by Poopoolfafa65,

    Poopoolfafa65 Poopoolfafa65 Sep 16, 2016 11:52 PM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 16, 2016 11:52 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

    Hello
    I have a Mac Pro model a1186. Version 10.6.8. Can I directly version

    OS X El Capitan

    installed?

  • by HaraldS,

    HaraldS HaraldS Sep 17, 2016 8:43 AM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 2 (324 points)
    iPhone
    Sep 17, 2016 8:43 AM in response to longtimemacuser666

    The easiest is to boot into Yosemite and upgrade it. If you run from the installer, it will pick that partition as the default.

     

    Alternately, you can use Disk Utility under Snow Leopard to erase (format) your Yosemite partition and run the installer from Snow Leopard.

     

    Note: the installer will default to upgrading Snow Leopard. After the dialogs with the license agreement, you will see a dialog confirming the installation on your main disk. There is a small button underneath the icon that asks to "Show All Disks…" Select that and pick your Yosemite partition. This way, Snow Leopard will be untouched.

     

    You will boot into the new OS as part of the installation and startup.

     

    To permanently pick your boot partition, go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your OS.

     

    To temporarily boot into the other OS, press the Option key on restart and it will show you the available boot partitions after the chime.

  • by longtimemacuser666,

    longtimemacuser666 longtimemacuser666 Sep 17, 2016 10:12 AM in response to HaraldS
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 17, 2016 10:12 AM in response to HaraldS

    Process clarification...

    I boot up from the 10.10.3 Recovery Partition on Alpha HD#1.

    The OSX Disc Utilities app comes up.

    I am presented with four options:

    1. Restore from a Time Machine backup
    2. Reinstall OSX (Reinstall a new copy of OSX)
    3. Get Help online
    4. Disk Utility (Repair or erase a disk using Disk Utility)

     

    Options 1 and 3 are not meaningful.  My questions are about 2 and 4.

     

    If I choose #2 (Reinstall a new copy of OSX) I assume it will simply re-install another copy of 10.10.3 over the existing copy.  What will happen with the new account that gets set up in this case?  Will it simply re-create the one account already there (a non-admin account) with the same permissions as currently exist? (that's what I'm trying to correct)  Or will it prompt me to choose account setup (in other words, will it let me set up my own account as an admin)?

     

    If I choose 4, I assume I will have the option to format (wipe) Alpha HD#1.  Will that really be possible to format the entire drive?  I ask because it will (I believe) be booting off that drive, and IME you can't perform that kind of operation on the drive it's running off.  I assume it's not running off a "network boot" (via the internet).  If I choose to format the drive (and it lets me) would it still be preserving the existing Recovery Partition?

     

    I'm inclined to try #2 (Reinstall a new copy of OSX) with the hope that it lets me set up myself as the admin...will that work?

     

    Thanks again!