Can I install Snow Leopard on the new Mac Mini

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3209335?answerId=17429162022#17429162022

http://lowendmac.com/2013/best-macs-for-running-both-snow-leopard-and-mavericks/

Would still very much appreciate hearing from any of the main contributors to this thread about just restoring a clone of 10.6.8 to a Mini partition and then moving over the kexts package, as linked above, and per the lowendmac article.

Since there has been an irrelevant and unnecessary post bringing this discussion to new page, where my original question may not be seen, I am re-posting that question.

Wondering if any of the heavy hitters in this thread know if it's possible to simply add a partition to a 2011 Mini and restore a Snow Leopard (10.6.8) CCC clone from my Late '09 iMac, and then move over that package of kexts (found here)?

Largely through the efforts of newfoundglory, who assembled the kexts necessary, the 2011 Mac Mini can run boot and run Snow Leopard from a separate partition.

Search for his posts earlier in this thread and his link to the assembled kexts.

I do not know if the poster you linked to, is as comprehensive as newfoundglory's work.

I've seen the posts you mention from NFG plus quite a few others in this very long thread and elsewhere, but what I'm asking is if it's possible to simply restore a 10.6.8 clone (which I have from a Late '09 iMac) to a second partition on the Mini 2011, plus add the needed kexts, instead of installing through Firewire TDM from a 2011 MBP, which has purportedly the same basic hardware configuration, or by way of a "vanilla" image with InstalDMG, which may also do the job.

As far as I can tell, no one ever discussed the possibility of getting there by restoring a 10.6.8 clone, and if one of those guys is still around, that's my question.

Well that of course is the problem: you have to find someone who has actually attempted your suggested method, has found success and is hopefully still reading this thread!

I was an original contributor to this thread when my iMac G5 died (for the last time) and I replaced it quickly with the 2011 Mac Mini without doing any due diligence on the release of Lion from my known experiences with Snow Leopard.

Even before newfoundglory announced his successes here, I made the decision that I wanted to continue to run Lion exclusively (that is not dual-boot) and regain my access to my PowerPC apps (that quickly died at that time, such as Office 2004, Quicken PPC 2007 for Mac, etc.). This decision, in my case, was primarily for the reason that I had just acquired a hand-me-down iPhone 3G that I had modified to work on my T-Mobile account and wanted the ease of iCloud for updates to my Address Book/Calendar.

So in my case, I went down the separate road to get PowerPC apps working in Snow Leopard client installed into Parallels, since at that time Snow Leopard Server was being sold by Apple at $499! As you know, after much research of the state of the art at that time, I was able to "hobble" together a way to accomplish this result.

I then moved my continued research and support for third parties over to MacRumors, primarily because this site does not allow for the constant modification of the first thread. You are discovering this flaw as you attempt to run down the state of the art of running Snow Leopard on the 2011 Mac Mini in a 45 page thread that has important information that is difficult to find and extract from this thread!

I would suggest that you attempt it, and be sure to come back and post your successes or failures!

Not something I'll be trying unless I know beforehand that it can be done. Otherwise will just limit my searches to 2010 and 2009 Minis.

OK! Any port in a Rosetta-less storm!

WZZZ wrote:

As far as I can tell, no one ever discussed the possibility of getting there by restoring a 10.6.8 clone, and if one of those guys is still around, that's my question.

Yes, you can restore a 10.6.8 clone to the 2011 Mac Mini and it will boot and work.

To get the 2011 Mac Mini to its full speed, efficiency and utilization of such new technologies as Thunderbolt, you have to install the extra software suggested by newfoundglory:

You can read more about these software additions by googling the term: "NFG gnommak Edition Mac mini 2011"

I just did it, but rather than use a clone, I did it the hard way, but a clone would have worked just as well. I used the instructions offered in the link at the bottom of this post:

1. I added a "Snow Leopard" partition to my 2011 Mac Mini internal HD

2. I booted it into Target Mode by holding down the "T" key during reboot.

3. I connected my 2011 Mac Mini in Target Mode by Firewire to my 2007 Mac Mini and installed Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on the Snow Leopard partition on the 2011 Mac Mini.

4. I used the 10.6.3 folder to restart the 2007 Mac Mini and then used Software Update twice to upgrade all of the elements of Snow Leopard.

5. I shut down both computers, disconnected Firewire and rebooted the 2011 Mac Mini into Snow Leopard and it booted and operated.

6. I then installed all of the newfoundglory additions using the NFG installer and rebooted.

7. One commentator indicated that to get an external DVD player to properly function in Snow Leopard on the 2011 Mac Mini to make this change:

Following Software Update’s final run of updates, I started working with the Mini and everything looked like it was working, including the all-important Front Row. Front Row was able to communicate with iTunes 11.x, so it looked like I was set until I attached an Apple USB SuperDrive and tried to play a movie DVD. No go; neither Front Row nor Apple’s DVD Player application recognized it as a valid DVD drive.

Why was this? After all, the 2011 Mini never came with an internal DVD player. This should have worked; except for the fact that the 2011 Mini was never supposed to run 10.6.8 either. All of the 2011 Macs that ran 10.6.8 were laptops that came with internal optical drives.

What fixed it was some additional driver modification. Using information found here on MacOSXHints, I edited/System/Library/Frameworks/DVDPlayback.framework/Versions/A/DVDPlayback with the 0xED hex editor. What I was doing was updating DVDPlayback‘s definition of an acceptable DVD player by finding the word Internal and replacing it with External, by searching for (hex)496E7465726E616C and replacing with (hex) 45787465726E616C.

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/installing-10-6-8-on-a-2011-mac-min i/

[click on image to enlarge]

MlchaelLAX wrote:

7. One commentator indicated that to get an external DVD player to properly function in Snow Leopard on the 2011 Mac Mini to

make this change:

Following Software Update’s final run of updates, I started working with the Mini and everything looked like it was working, including the all-important Front Row. Front Row was able to communicate with iTunes 11.x, so it looked like I was set until I attached an Apple USB SuperDrive and tried to play a movie DVD. No go; neither Front Row nor Apple’s DVD Player application recognized it as a valid DVD drive.

Why was this? After all, the 2011 Mini never came with an internal DVD player. This should have worked; except for the fact that the 2011 Mini was never supposed to run 10.6.8 either. All of the 2011 Macs that ran 10.6.8 were laptops that came with internal optical drives.

That commentator is wrong. Most iMacs from 2011 can also run Snow Leopard, even those that came with Lion preinstalled.

A technical error that does not discredit the ultimate point he was making.

I can now confirm that I have made this change to Snow Leopard on my 2011 Mac Mini and indeed DVD Player now functions properly with my external USB DVD drive!