Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

Fortunately we are in agreement on everything 🙂 apart from cross booting similar hardware with an older OS that predates the new system. I admit defeat there.

I admire your perseverance and congratulate you on pushing through the hole and getting a successful installation.

I guess it hinges on existing core hardware support in Snow Leopard for various systems, Lion being a software revision of Snow Leopard and the mini being the last one to get the core upgrade with I guess the same hardware parts?

I'm still kind of amazed at the method - which is not without hiccups and a custom install DVD would be handy - and that Lion is actually not required.

This might be unique in history ... and an interesting precedent 😉

Well I'm glad we can maintain our friendship throughout this ordeal! 🙂

In previous releases (probably starting at Leopard) I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly that you cannot run new hardware on the previous full-release software. However it seems like with Snow Leopard Apple has gone to a more iterative approach where they aren't doing a complete tear-down re-write of the next generation OS. As a result there seems to be some edge cases like this one where we are able to get the previous OS onto new hardware.

Or that could all be non-sense and the reason the new Mini can go backwards to SL is because Apple recognized that many people still need Rosetta and they felt extra compassionate that day. 😉 I think dropping Rosetta is a pretty big deal and Apple knows that. As a result they made sure that the 10.6.8 update included the necessary drivers to keep the new 10.7 machines running for the short term.

To be honest my perseverance is partly due to finding some references to Thunderbolt in the System Profiler. It occured to me that the new iMacs with Thunderbolt were released BEFORE 10.7 went live. And as a result their hardware needed to be supported by SL (I think that was probably 10.6.7 but I'm guessing). This was just the glimmer of hope I needed! 🙂

As an aside for those who are interested. My Mac Mini has the upgraded video card in it (AMD Radeon HD 6630M) and video appears to be working as expected. I have not plugged it into my HDTV to try out movies yet (still importing my media collection into iTunes, it takes awhile) but I'm confident that will go smoothly. For those of you with the Intel HD 3000 you should be fine since that video card has been in several different Macs recently so it's fully supported by SL.

Thanks for your work on this John, looks like I'll be able to order new minis after all--I was thinking I'd have to order last year's model.

Since you could boot the mini from a MBP 10.6.8 in target drive mode, could you put both the mini and the MBP in target drive mode, and use a third machine to clone the MBP's drive to the mini? Seems to me the cloning should have the same result as a drive swap, but maybe I'm missing something.

Not quite...the install on your MBP is specific to the MBP hardware which the Mini doesn't share. The Mini's hardware (think WiFi card, Bluetooth, etc) is going to be different than the MBP's hardware. :\ This is why I had to use the Retail disk to install OS X on the Mini.

However if I hadn't tried as many things to get his working as I did I wouldn't have found a solution. It's certainly worth a try! 🙂 My suggestion would be to use Carbon Copy Cloner (or SuperDuper) installed on the 3rd machine. Worst case you've wasted a half hour! All said and done I've got probably 25-30hrs into all of the various methods I tried to get this working. To be fair...most of that is waiting for processes like OS X installing lol but a LOT of it was filled with swearing and pulling at my hair! 😉

Well, it is all too easy to get hung up on a right/wrong thing.

This is a most interesting case ... and am still surprised it actually worked. Especially point 3-4-5. I don't fiddle with Mac hardware & software enough; but have done more than a fair share over the past decade. To some extent I am not surprised as SL already supported various latest generation components in the other systems ... that still leaves the motherboard and the machine identifier check.

The OS has been pretty much always been software development, I think (apart from PPC/Intel). Now and then there are point releases in the OS to support new Mac hardware, iTunes releases to support new iOS devices, etc.

I agree that dropping Rosetta is a very big deal. I have advised several people explicitly not to update nor upgrade to a new system; because they need Rosetta for their software. A hardware failure for these people would be problematic because they depend on running their apps until they are updated, if ever, or a compatible application would come out that allows importing & conversion. People buy expensive software packages and have a far greater investment in them as far as time & data; then the hardware it runs on.

PS: Just read something about the new MacBook Air runing on a newer / custom Lion build and the common Lion installer doesn't even work; which would boil down to 10.7.1 or .2 being required. I guess they won't be installing Snow Leopard.

I noticed that the discussion seems to focus on getting Snow Leopard onto an internal drive of the new Mac Minis. I currently boot my 2009 Mac Mini from a FW800 external drive with 10.6.8. If I just plug my external drive into a new 2011 Mac Mini, will it boot into Snow Leopard if I set it as the startup disk?

I'd say your chances are better than 80%. The only thing that could hold you up would be if your 2009 Mini's install didn't include all drivers that are possible for Mac Minis to need. So your external drive only has the 2009 drivers and not any other drivers. In that case you might be in for some issues surrounding Bluetooth, WiFI, Video, etc.

Best part is you can try it w/o hurting/installing/changing anything 🙂

Now that doesn't surprise me at all. Apple's been treating the Air like a treasured pet ever since its announcement several years ago. Between the soldered in RAM and proprietary everything that machine is a PITA to work on...

Quick question John (or all). I completely understand what do do up to the point were we need to apply the 10.6.8 update.

After my iMac (in your case, your MBP) reboots and you swap the retail SL disk out for the machine specific recovery disk it will continue to install the core OS.

When that is done we will want to apply the 10.6.8 update. How is that done exactly. If done via "software update" wouldnt I be applying it to my iMac since that is what is actually running (the mac mini is just a firewire connected HD at this point right?). How do I point the update to install on the the Mac mini HD? Should I download it manually?

Or, when the core OS is done installing do I reboot once again and select the Mac Mini as the boot drive and then do the update (is that possible? Does the Mac mini stay connected as a firewire drive during reboots or do I hold down "T" at each reboot?)

Having never used Target Disk Mode I am unsure what to expect.

Quite simple actually sir.

Once OS X has completed installing (Mini) the 'Welcome to OS X' activity begins. This includes all the fancy welcome screens, etc. It asks you to create an account on the machine, register with Apple, etc. Once this activity is complete the machine immediately loads into OS X. You see the desktop, icons, Finder bar, etc. This is your Mini's hard drive and OS X install. Simply click the Apple in the upper left corner and run Software Update. It'll find OS X, iTunes, various security updates, possibly a Java update, etc.

Once you've downloaded all of the updates it will tell you that you need to restart. Click restart and the machine will install all of the updates and do a reboot. The Host machine will restart and actually continue to boot from the Mini's hard drive automatically. After the reboot shut it down and connect the Mini to an external display and you're all set.

Thanks for all your help John. I havent installed a Mac OS in a while (complete oppsite to my Windows quarterly routine!) but I thought I remember that immediately after the core OS finished installing a reboot occured and THEN you get the welcome video and registration screens etc. I was worried that I wouldnt be able to tell what I was actually booting into, my iMac or the newly installed mini at that point

Bravo, John Fair!! (And mikethebook, you should mark John's "success" post with the "answered" plus give "helpful" to his other posts -- he certainly deserves the points!)

A question... I would new need to transfer a user on to a new mini. Is there a screen that comes up asking for Setup Assistant somewhere along the way? (asking if I want to "Transfer from another mac") What if the Source machine for Setup Assistant was the same iMac running 10.6.8 that I was using to install SL onto the mini?

Hi Cathy,

Thanks for the kudos :)

You can definitely recover from a TM backup or another Mac once OSX is installed. You get the same OS X setup screen as you do with a stereotypical install. So it will ask if you want to transfer files from any one of the three standard locations. The Host machine's hard drive should be available to choose "From Another Mac Computer", however I have not personally confirmed this. It should work in theory though.

Let us know if you get that to work :)

Hi John! I'm glad I found your post. I have a new Quad i7 Mac Mini "Server" and have been struggling with it the past couple days. I don't need the "Server" parts, but rather bought this version for the processors it came with.

Over the past couple days I found that it's not possible to restore to Lion (Desktop); it restores to Lion (Server). And while the Server version is supposed to be identical to Desktop, a call to AppleCare confirmed my troubles - that "Server" _may_ have slight differences here and there that can cause compatibility issues.

I had a heck of a time trying to install CS5, in fact I just couldn't, and hours of Adobe chats and Googling couldn't help me. I even tried to install Lion over TDM to my Mini from the AppStore image, and it wouldn't boot that way either! It seems the Server edition of the mini only like Lion Server...something keeps it from booting from a clean Lion (Desktop) install or just the Installer itself (on a USB drive I image'd).

Anyway, I managed to get Snow Leopard onto the Mini and am typing this now on it...while CS5 installs without a hitch (so far) in the background(!). My process wasn;t quite as smooth as yours seemed to be, however.

I was using a retail 10.6.3 disc and the recovery discs from a mid-2010 MBP (shipped with 10.6.3). I installed from the retail disc onto the Mini in TDM, then it rebooted (I didn't swap in the recovery disc since they were the same version). On reboot, the installer popped up and said "OS X Can't boot from this disc" and the install was screwed at that point. I guess I should have tried putting in the recovery disc nonetheless?

Anyway, I also had the retail disc on a USB drive, booted my MBP from it, then installed onto the Mini in TDM. This time it seemed to work and the MBP rebooted successfully and I went through all the setup screens, etc. I then ran Software Update and got to 10.6.8 and shut down.

On reboot of the mini with fingers crossed, it booted! I was ecstatic. But the first thing I noticed was that my dual display setup wasn't working right: the display hooked up to the Thunderbolt port was not being recognized. I disconnected it and rebooted and all seems OK now. I ran SU again, but it didn't fix my Thunderbolt-attached display, in fact System profiler shows two identical displays attached, but the Thunderbolt one is a different model display.

My current plan is to install the Lion-problematic CS5, then clone it, then try an "upgrade" to Lion (Desktop) and see if I can boot the mini into Lion (Desktop). If it works, and my Thunderbolt display works, etc, I think I can live with Lion (although i understand what you mean about how annoying it is!).

Otherwise if it won't boot, I will try reinstalling SL the correct way and swap in my recovery disc this time (BTW, how do you eject the disc when the selector screen comes up? And once you do the swap, do you then select the recovery disc and it will continue the installation process?), and hopefully that will fix my Thunderbolt display issue and I'll happily live with 10.6.8!

Thanks again for your hard work!