Install Snow Leopard in a Lion partition

Running SL partition after installing Lion.

I have a macbook pro 2010 and upgraded to lion.

Then i made an extra partition with disk utility for snow leopard.

I had some problems with installing snow leopard, so I put my Macbook pro in Firewire mode and used another macbook to install Snow leopard on my macbook pro.

Then snow leopard wouldn't start when i selected it, booting with command button. Nothing happend, grey screen.

I put my macbook pro in firewire mode again, connected it to the other macbook.SL was booting and I did the software update.

After this snow leopard is also booting from my macbook pro.

Hope this helps.

All,

Not to be able to install Snow Leopard on my new I7 IMac strikes as completely unacceptable.

I have found Lion unreliable and unstable as well as making a considerable software investment unusable. Even Logic Pro 8.0.2 does not work with Lion. I was looking forward to running some of these application on this much faster machine. I can obviously go back to older machines but clearly this is not the objective here.

Why are we as the Apple user community accepting the way Apple treats some of its longstanding customers with utter contempt - if I pay for hardware, then surely I should be able to use how want to use.

Presumably, it should be possible to delete all partitions using the machine in target disk mode and then undertaking a complete reinstall of all software, or are we saying that this machine is 'locked' as a lion machine and has had some hardware modifications?

Clarification of the last questions would be appreciated.

Tom

well, they dropped powerpc so they could redistrubute all the old games and software on the app store, They get the classic 30-70 split.

I would love to role back to Snow Leopard too. Can anyone confirm it is possible to partition and install Snow Leopard on a Macbook Pro that shipped with Lion pre-installed?

I have read varying reports that no, it is absolutely not possible if it shipped with Lion OS, and another report that it could be done...

Just got my new computer and Lion has lots of compatibility issues with the programs I use the most.

Any confirmation greatly appreciated, thanks!

Hy, i'm in the nearby case, i want to install SL because my Lacie 2big network i'snt compatible with Lion, how to install SL in a partition form Lion.

Thanks

Hi,

Recently received my new macbook pro shipped with Lion. Due to software that doesn't run (yet) under Lion I wanted a SL partition beside the Lion installation. The solution of Aage Hollander worked for me. I was even able to go back to a Time Machine backup on the SL partition. Remember to also run the update (to 10.6.8) in target mode, otherwise the bootloader doesn't accept the partition with SL and will not boot.

It has a few catches, like you'll need a firewire-port (for the target mode) and a seperate machine with SL and a SL installationdisk/file. That should solve it for Tomsheck, but for paperqueen that's a problem.

Don't know how to solve it for the macbook air, accept practicing patience and hope for updates.....

Tjalling

Have you tried installing SL on an external harddrive?

If that doesn't work, you could try running it inside a Parallels or VM virtual machine. Have a look here:

http://www.ivanexpert.com/blog/2011/08/snow-leopard-as-a-parallelsvmwarevirtualb ox-guest-os/

I had a new MacBook Pro shiped with lion already instaled and I'm experiencing the same problem. And it seems that the only solution shows up in this tread. Perhaps t-bowl or Aage Hollander could give a more in-detail explanation of how they did it? A manual for dummies that would allow me to install SL fron another computer and run it in the Lion System. I'll be gratefull to you.

Thanks!

This works for some.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20081187-263/how-to-keep-snow-leopard-when- upgrading-to-lion/

http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/12/how-to-install-dual-boot-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-and-1 0-6-snow-leopard/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390348,00.asp

Thank you Ziatron for your reply. According to what I read in other discussions and comments in this thread, this procedure doesn't work in new MacBook Pros that came with the Lion System already installed.

I just got Snow Leopard working on my new (refurbished) MacBook Pro shipped with Lion (received 4 days ago). I had all the same problems described above, kernal panic when attempting to boot from the SL Install disk. Even spent an hour on the phone with apple support, who sent me to the nearest Apple Store which attempted a factory reset before telling me installing SL was legitimately impossible due to how they ship computers now.

1. Used Carbon Copy Cloner (free) to transfer my old Snow Leopard's hard drive onto an external drive

2. Booted from the external drive (hold option key during restart, select external drive as boot disk) it boots in SNOW LEOPARD [obviously slow, it's running off an external drive]

3. Booted again, loading up "Recovery HD". Used Disk Utility to erase Maintosh HD (verify this is done by restarting again and checking that booting from recovery and external drives are your only options) [Can't remember exactly if i did this step from "Recovery HD" or the external boot... Probably "Recovery"]

4. Boot from external drive again, run Carbon Copy Cloner to transfer external drive to Macintosh HD

5. Restart again (hold option to select boot drive), boot from Macintosh HD

6. If all goes well, you'll be running Snow Leopard

Maybe worth mentioning... I did all those steps with the SL install disk still in my computer. Doubt it makes a difference, but my computer beeped at me and ejected the disk on a restart after step 6.

No idea why this works, or if it will work for you - i'm not a computer guy. Just really obsessed with getting Snow Leopard on my new MacBook Pro for music production purposes.

Also worth mentioning... My CPU was up around 40% for the first few minutes on the new Snow Leopard operating system. I thought I had ruined my computer. It's back at 3% now for normal browsing. All is good.

Just coming back on my comments last week. I have managed to install SL into a separate partition on my Imac that shipped Lion.

I used my mac mini that shipped with SL with the Imac in target disk mode. You will need to ensure that you bring the installation up to 10.6.8 but it works fine allowing me to run older installations.

Ideally, I should like to run SL on a virtual machine, but so far have not succeeded with that. In theory this may allow me to run Logic with Lion, but I shall have to experiment. I also still have to install windows on a third bootable partition rather than just run it as a virtual machine.

Anyway, I am sure so long as you have a second machine, you will be able to get this to work fine.

In awnser to mar771 and in addition to Turbo_Ginger I'll explain my how-to. I'm not encouraging anything illegal (clearly Apple is preventing us from doing this), I want my (sometimes very expensive) software to work on my new laptop, at least untill the updates are available. Also, note that everything you do is at own risk; this is how it worked for me.

Before you start, be sure to have:

-2 machines with a firewire port (and a cable).

-installation disk (I ran the DVD, did't try with an imagefile) with Snow Leopard

-if you want to return to a previous system on the new machine a backup of the "old" system.

-a backup of the Lion system (just in case of.....)

1. Make a backup of your Lion system. (Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner (not familiar with) or anything else)

2. On the Lion system, use Disk Utility to make a new partition for de SL system. (in Disk Utility select de HD, enter the tab "partition" and use the "+" to create a new partition). Give it a clear name (preferably not the same name as one of your other (external) harddrives)

Keep in mind that resizing the partition afterwards is difficult, not to say impossible without loosing data on the partition. (erasing the partition is not a problem however, so you can always go back to "1.").

3. Reboot the "Lion machine" in Target mode by restarting it and pressing the "T" after the chord (when the apple appears). You can also go to "System Preferences" and choose "startup disk", there's a button for restarting in Target mode. When you see a bouncing firewire (and maybe a Thunderbolt) logo on your screen it's in target mode. While in this mode, your computer is reduced to a really expensive external HD casing.

4. Use the firewire cable to connect the two machines, and check if the lion's HDs appear as external drives on the second machine.

5. From the DVD, start the installation of SL on the second machine.

6. When you install SL, there comes a time it asks where to install SL. Choose your newly made partition ("disk") on the Lion machine. Further, follow the instructions of the installer. Even when the second machine restarts during the installation, it continues on the right partition/drive/disk.

7. Once the installer is finished, run "Software Update" to update to 10.6.8. This is still with the Lion machine in Target Disk mode! If you're unsure, you can always check Finder to see your other drives.

Note: if, for any reason, the second machine restarts and does't revert to the new partition, restart the second machine while holding the option (alt) key after the chord. This brings up a list that shows you the connected bootable drives, and with the arrows you can choose the drive to boot from. This should include the newly made SL partition on the Lion machine, which is shown as an external drive. If the new partition doesn't show it is not bootable and you have to start all over.

8. If the installation is finished and you ran software update succesfully, you can restart the lion machine (pressing the power button once to switch it off, pressing a second time makes it boot like normal). After the chord, press the option key (alt).

If all went well, you can choose now between your Lion partition and the SL partition. You now have a dual boot system with a clean install of SL on the second partition. You can use migration assistant, new installations, time machine or anything of your liking to reinstall the beloved applications.

Enjoy both systems. Glad to be of any help.

By very strange coincidence, the very next email I read after yours was about exactly the same issue but on Windows, and it said:

With Windows 7 Professional you can download and install (free of charge)

Virtual PC. This gives you a full Windows XP environment that you access via

Windows 7.

You can then install your 2003 applications under XP as a safeguard against

any problems with the later versions installed under Windows 7. You will of

course need to keep a separate copy of the files for the XP environment.

I did this a few months ago as we have a lot of legacy applications that

won't run under windows 7 and find that it works very well.

Virutal PC is free feature of Win7. You have to wonder why Microsoft are more accomodating than Apple in regard to their old customer base and helping users to transition to the next gen of s/w. I never thought I'd say it, but here's something Apple could learn from its old-time rival.

Thank you t-bowl for the very clear explanation. SL is happily runing now in my HD's partition.