Q: Downgrading from Lion to 10.6.8?

@wdmeissner, it sounds like you may be suffering from a similar problem to the one I had. I bought my iMac (now with Lion) originally with SL on it but the install disk was no longer readable. However, I had a retail copy of SL that I purchased to upgrade another machine but when I tried to boot off that disk, I got the boing, the Apple logo and then nothing; no disk activity - nothing. The problem seemed to be that my Mac firmware/hardware was newer than the drivers on the SL retail disk even though the latter was purchased after the Mac itself.

I contacted AppleCare and they *eventually* agreed to replace my original SL install disk although they kept telling me that downgrading from Lion was not officially supported. Indeed, they finally offered to replace the diskFOC since I had not been happy with my Lion purchase.

None of this helps you of course. But, even though my SL disks were in the post, I decided to try and go ahead without them. You may be able to do the same if you have another older Mac available to you. I plugged an external disk into an older iMac and booted off my retail SL disk. This worked fine. I then installed SL onto the external disk and booted off this (still on the old Mac). I applied the Combo 10.6.8 update . Now the system had the latest drivers and I could move the external disk to my newer Mac and now, thankfully, boot that into SL. You could probably skip the external disk part and use your new MBP in target disk mode when connected to the older Mac and install straight to that.

Whether this works for you will depend on two things:

1) You have an older Mac to do the initial install.

2) The 10.6.8 Combo update will need to have the drivers for your MBP. I guess the easiest way to find this out would be to try it.

HTH

See my earlier post on Page 2 of this discussion thread.  You'll need an external drive with 10.6.8; a Snow Leopard installation disk is an earlier revision and won't boot up on the computer (I tried it on a new iMac last year).  You can install SL from the DVD on to the external drive, then boot from it (Option key on bootup), then do Software Update to bring the ext. drive up to latest rev.  Then boot up off the external drive and use Disk Utility as I indicated earlier on in this thread.  You may be able to wipe the whole disk, what I did was set up a SL partition on the HD, so I now have a schizophrenic iMac - 1 partition with SL, the other with Lion.  My only warning: once you've set the partition size, you can't change it either from Lion or SL without reformating the disk, so you may be better off trying to format the whole HD assuming there's nothing on it.

Good luck.  Applecare (even Level 2) Tech Support didn't know (or wouldn't say) how to do this.

I feel so lucky to have purchased all the hardware I needed before Lion was released.

Ocean Digital wrote:

 

I feel so lucky to have purchased all the hardware I needed before Lion was released.

That is good, because you won't be able to get it in six months for your old system. But you seem happy, so all Mac users in the world are happy for you to stay back there out of the way of technological advancements.

Bye

Mrs Mulligans, you still don't get it do you?

You've already been identified as a troll by someone else on this thread - you didn't answer that, you just wade back in implying that all of us with legacy software are somehow deficient.

No we're not deficient, Mrs Mulligans - the reason that Apple has grown to such a force in the world of IT is that many of us posters have given it our patronage for many many years, and we expect, in return, to be able to run old software for long enough to safeguard our past files. If you are so shallow as to feel that emptying your wallet, sorry purse, in Apple's direction every time something different comes out, then carry on throwing money at Apple, but don't expect that your profligacy actually conveys authority. Just the opposite.

You've said "Bye" more than once on this thread, but you just can't leave it, can you? You seem to have a need to have the last word and to assert that you think you have some sort of superiority over those of us who chose Apple as our workbench via which to earn a living.

And yes, I do earn a living, thank you. A good one. And I run legacy software, thank you. It works well. It's had all the bugs fixed. Not everyone trades their car in because a new model comes out, and mercifully last year's cars are supported, serviced and repaired just as efficiently as this year's.

You might like to walk to your nearest car-park and challenge every owner of every car that's over one year old, suggesting they are somehow neanderthal, but I think you'll get your nose broken.

So please stop these banal utterances - this thread is for those who WANT to downgrade, who KNOW why and who have made a balanced judgement. Your judgement, and you've singularly failed to show otherwise, is "it's new, and I paid for it, so it's better".

Well boogaloo - you've paid more money that the rest of us on this thread, and you have gained nothing but a pathetic disregard for those who share this thread. If all you have is insults, you have nothing.

We have a lot of working software and a deep disinterest in your approach to what has otherwise been a mutually supportive thread.

So what is your question? And why do you keep talking about cars? And you reckon I don't get it? Go and buy a new Mac with Snow Leopard on it. Oh, sorry, you can't, that's right. Every buyer at the moment (the ones who helped push Apple shares through the roof again) are using Lion. The majority of them with no problem and no knowledge of the old Snow Leopard OS. Good attempt at a rant, but overdone on the 'car' stuff.

Bye

What is my question?

Can't you see? Apparently not.

My question is "What IS your point?" - you don't have one.

You type "Every buyer at the moment are using Lion"

Well, nice sentence construction (that was irony), but what *is* your point?

Your point, perhaps, is that given a choice of one, new buyers are choosing the choice of one.

Well, that's hardly incisive.

And I wasn't having a "rant", Mrs Mulligans, and it wasn't a good attempt at a rant. It was troll-bait. And you bit. Again.

You said I had poor "stuff"- I think you mean "analogies"

You can't express yourself clearly and you can't come up with a coherent understanding about the need to preserve software programs, files (for HMRC regulations) and documents.

Sure, if you want to watch YouTube, play MP3s and generally surf the web, anything will do. If you want to open a document created 7 years ago because HMRC regulations insist that you can, well....

Do NOT insult my intelligence Mrs Mulligans, and if you think that by calling a reasoned argument a "rant" you elevate your standing on this thread, well, I'll let you have the last word, but I know what the other subscribers on this list will think. So please, say "BYE" and *mean* it, because if there's no truth in that, you've just shown that there's no truth in the rest of you spleen-venting....

Now, I'll say it again...

"We have a lot of working software and a deep disinterest in your approach to what has otherwise been a mutually supportive thread."

Derek Hasted1 wrote:

 

What is my question?

Can't you see? Apparently not.

 

Definately not. Can't even see a 'reasoned argument'.But as long as YOU believe what you rant, then that is good for you.

Bye

Derek,

One possibility for you to run your existing software while still being able to enjoy the "pleasures" of Lion might be to install Snow Leopard in a Parallels virtual machine running inside your Lion-based Mac. I only just discovered this is possible. I guess the memory hit would be rather large but if you've got plenty of RAM it might be worthwhile.

As with all things, there is a snag. In this case it is that the Apple EULA for Snow Leopard doesn't allow it to be run inside of a VM and hence installing the desktop version of SL is explicitly disallowed by the Parallels VM creator. So to do this legally you'll need to source a version of Snow Leopard Server. For those with a more wayward moral compass, a quick Google reveals that there are ways around the problem with installing the desktop version.

Ms Mulligans, you don't have an old copy of SL Server you'd like to donate to me now that you must surely have purged it from all your Macs in favour of the latest and greatest? Note to self: must stop feeding the troll; he is gettng too fat.

bowerandy wrote:

 

Derek,

 

 

Ms Mulligans, you don't have an old copy of SL Server you'd like to donate to me now that you must surely have purged it from all your Macs in favour of the latest and greatest?

Yes I do in fact. But I've promised it to a museum since wiping the SL partition from my Macbook due to lack of use now that Lion is so stable.

Cheers

Bowerandy - a nice (and *helpful*) contribution thank you. At the moment, I can run the latest versions of Pages and Numbers on Snow Leopard, so I don't have an incentive to move to Lion. I will use my time to preserve more of my files within a single OS machine, and I'll migrate one of my Macs to Lion when the time is right. As you clearly understand, maintaining access to one's legacy files is vital, and I appreciate your new slant at how one might ease the pain of transition. I think the true spirit of this thread is in finding the best way to migrate when one has a big investment in software and the files that software has produced. Your solution is an elegant way to proceed.

Mrs Mulligans - I thought you had said Goodbye. This thread is nothing to do with the stability of Lion, though your use of the word "now" implies Lion was a mess earlier. Rather, it is to do with the ability to open files created with software running in earlier versions of the MacOs. Now I really don't mind you posting over and over, but you really shouldn't keep saying that I rant. I run a successful business, I have many tens of thousands of legacy files precisely because I have been successful, and I don't keep saying "rant" over and over and over. You do. Sure I have a problem, and I have a solution. In fact the *only* unsolved problem I have is that you keep telling me I should spend money to convert my machine to Lion so I *can't* access some of my files. Keep pounding the keys, Mrs M, if you must - but you're proving as much use to this thread as a chocolate fireguard. And yes, that is another analogy, or "stuff" as you called it last time. I know my limitations, and I know when I'm wrong. We differ in two respects, then.

Derek Hasted1 wrote:

 

 

This thread is nothing to do with the stability of Lion, though your use of the word "now" implies Lion was a mess earlier.

Yes, some small hiccups in the initial 10.7 release as can be expected in new and advanced OSs. Much more stable in 10.7.1 and rocketing along in 10.7.2

Imagine how good it may be in 10.7.8 if ever needed as in SL.

Good Luck

We all seem to agree Lion is a design failure. But the real problem here is that I feel quite powerless to feedback to Apple and I see no sign from Apple acknowledging the Lion failure, and no sign that the issue is being considered at all.

Sure there are the online feedback forms and these forums, but there is no response from Apple, no two-way communication. And that is the real failure.

Also I wonder how they expect to keep my business as an apple customer. Like many others I've downgraded to snow leopard and will not go back to Lion. But the software is no longer the issue for me. Apple has destroyed the great trust I had in it and its products. They'll need to restore that with some pretty amazing customer service if they want to stop me upgrading to PC in the future.

jackalapple wrote:

 

We all seem to agree Lion is a design failure.

No we don't. A few of you do.

But the real problem here is that I feel quite powerless to feedback to Apple and I see no sign from Apple acknowledging the Lion failure, and no sign that the issue is being considered at all.

 

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

You won't hear from Apple here. They will let everyone know what's been addressed when they release another update, And that will be on the Apple site,

Does anyone know if the snow leopard migration assistant will work when pointed to a Lion installed HD?

I too regret the eager plunge of a new OS only to find it's the first time apple have disappointed me. I shall have to be more cautious in the future. My MBP is not a new one, but the slow down some niggly issues have made me dream of how it used to be on my problem free Snow Leopard 

I can copy over all my files, but really don't want to have to find all the serials for my extensive app collection!