My 2010 Mac Air updated to Lion and couldn't run it. I used the disk utility to erase the SSD and want to install Snow Leopard from the disk. Do I need a DMG file? Where do I find it? How can I install from the disk I have? it trys to install Lion from the internet and cant run it. Any help would be appreciated.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.5
rbrthdn wrote:
My 2010 Mac Air updated to Lion and couldn't run it.
What do you mean by this? If Lion would not boot macOS, then you may have some hardware issues.
If it is just being unable to run later versions of third party software or being able to access the Internet, then that is to be expected.
I used the disk utility to erase the SSD and want to install Snow Leopard from the disk.
Your MacBook Air shipped with an OS X 10.6 Recovery DVD. Use that to reinstall Snow Leopard.
it trys to install Lion from the internet and cant run it.
Yes, sometimes no matter which keys used to access Recovery Mode or Internet Recovery Mode will only result in booting to the online installer for the OS which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory.......since macOS 10.6 was only ever released on DVD, there is no online version of Snow Leopard available so macOS 10.7 Lion is instead made available.
Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to attempt to access the macOS 10.13 High Sierra online installer.
If you have access to another Mac from 2007 to mid-2018, then you can create a bootable macOS USB installer for:
Those model years are just generalizations since there are a few exceptions. You can use the information in the following article to confirm which versions of macOS are compatible with various Apple hardware to confirm the other Mac is compatible with a particular OS:
https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility
The other Mac can currently be running any version of macOS 10.6+.
Even if Internet Recovery Mode allows you to reinstall macOS 10.7 Lion, then do so and later upgrade to macOS 10.11 followed by 10.13 since only 10.11 can be downloaded from another computer outside of the App Store to transfer it to the MBAir running Lion.
rbrthdn wrote:
My 2010 Mac Air updated to Lion and couldn't run it.
What do you mean by this? If Lion would not boot macOS, then you may have some hardware issues.
If it is just being unable to run later versions of third party software or being able to access the Internet, then that is to be expected.
I used the disk utility to erase the SSD and want to install Snow Leopard from the disk.
Your MacBook Air shipped with an OS X 10.6 Recovery DVD. Use that to reinstall Snow Leopard.
it trys to install Lion from the internet and cant run it.
Yes, sometimes no matter which keys used to access Recovery Mode or Internet Recovery Mode will only result in booting to the online installer for the OS which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory.......since macOS 10.6 was only ever released on DVD, there is no online version of Snow Leopard available so macOS 10.7 Lion is instead made available.
Try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to attempt to access the macOS 10.13 High Sierra online installer.
If you have access to another Mac from 2007 to mid-2018, then you can create a bootable macOS USB installer for:
Those model years are just generalizations since there are a few exceptions. You can use the information in the following article to confirm which versions of macOS are compatible with various Apple hardware to confirm the other Mac is compatible with a particular OS:
https://eshop.macsales.com/guides/Mac_OS_X_Compatibility
The other Mac can currently be running any version of macOS 10.6+.
Even if Internet Recovery Mode allows you to reinstall macOS 10.7 Lion, then do so and later upgrade to macOS 10.11 followed by 10.13 since only 10.11 can be downloaded from another computer outside of the App Store to transfer it to the MBAir running Lion.
rbrthdn wrote:
My 2010 Mac Air updated to Lion and couldn't run it. I used the disk utility to erase the SSD and want to install Snow Leopard from the disk. Do I need a DMG file? Where do I find it? How can I install from the disk I have?
If those are DVD recovery discs – like the ones that came with many other old Macs – you would need an external CD/DVD drive. The MacBook Air doesn't have an internal optical drive – getting rid of that drive was a part of how Apple got the notebook's weight down.
Mac startup key combinations - Apple Support
You would start up the Mac while holding down the Option key, to get to Startup Manager so that you could boot from the recovery disc.
As far as I know, Apple never offered Snow Leopard in the App Store, or as a downloadable installer.
They shipped it pre-installed on Macs, installed on recovery DVDs included with some Macs, and on DVDs in Snow Leopard upgrade kits. Once you had some version of Snow Leopard installed, you could go to an Apple download site to get incremental or combo installers to upgrade it to later releases of Snow Leopard. But those installers did require you to be running some version of Snow Leopard first.
According to MacTracker, the 2010 MacBook Airs originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.6.4 or 10.6.5, which means that any version of Snow Leopard earlier than that (like 10.6) would not be compatible with those machines.
Why snow leopard if your Mac it’s compatible with macOS High Sierra? There is not way to download that OS X snow leopard
How to download and install macOS - Apple Support
where do I find a full install file for snow leopard?
