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Roy Miller Author

Level 1

31 points

HowTo revert new MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or iMac to Snow Leopard

Hi all,

the following instructions were provided to me by our Apple Enterprise tech, and I've successfully performed these steps on a newly purchased MacBook Pro.

Please note the following - as of 15 Aug 2011:

- this technique will work on new MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or iMac computers UNTIL Apple modifies the hardware in these computers

- this technique will NEVER work on currently shipping MacBook Air or Mac Mini computers

- this configuration of Snow Leopard installed on a computer that shipped with Lion is not supported by Apple Support. It is entirely possible that after a trip for an AppleCare support incident, or the Apple Genius Bar, that the computer will return with Lion installed.

with these caveats, here are the step-by-step instructions:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

HowTo - NetRestore - Install Mac OS X 10.6.8 on new Mac delivered with Mac OS X 10.7.0

note: this only applies to Macbook Pro, Mac Pro, and iMac computers that originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.6.x.

Current Macbook Air and Mac Mini computers cannot be downgraded.

Required resources:

- another computer, running Mac OS X 10.6.8

- spare external disk

- Snow Leopard installation disc (Mac OS X 10.6.0 or 10.6.3 Box Set)

- Snow Leopard 10.6.8 Combo image file (download from Apple Support Downloads page)

- System Image Utility 10.6.8 (download Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.dmg from Apple Support Downloads page)

Procedure:

A. Create the NetImage:

1) mount the base source image (Mac OS X 10.6.3.dmg - created from Box Set Installer)

2) launch System Image Utility (from Server Admin Tools)

3) when source (from mounted image) appears in SIU screen, click Custom button

4) drag "Customize Package Selection" from Automator Library window to location

between existing "Define Image Source" and "Create Image"

5) drag "Add Packages and Post-Install Scripts" from Automator Library to location

between "Customize Package Selection" and "Create Image"

6) in the "Customize Package Selection" section:

a) expand the "Mac OS X" triangle

b) select options desired

c) collapse the "Mac OS X" triangle

7) mount the appropriate update image (Mac OS X 10.6.8 v1.1 Combo.dmg)

8) copy the MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.8.pkg package to a new local directory (Desktop/parts/)

9) drag the MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.8.pkg icon from local directory to the

"Add Packages and Post-Install Scripts" section of the SIU window

10) in the "Create Image" section:

a) select the type "NetRestore"

b) set the "Installed Volume:" field to "Macintosh HD" (no quotes, can be any name)

c) select the "Save To:" location

(will be faster to a second local internal disk)

(not faster to another partition on the same disk)

d) set the "Image Name:" field to "Snow Leopard 10.6.8 NetRestore"

e) the fields "Network Disk:", "Description:", and "Image Index:" don't

matter unless one is going to use results on a NetBoot Server

11) click the Run button

12) when the dialogs appear, ignore the text and click OK for proper completion

Dialog text: "Image creation in progress.

Cancel the image creation to proceed"

B. Post-process to create Restore Image:

1) find the directory created in the above process, named as in A.10d above

(Snow Leopard 10.6.8 NetRestore.nbi)

2) in this directory are three files:

- i386

- NBImageInfo.plist

- NetInstall.dmg

3) mount the NetInstall image (double-click the NetInstall.dmg file)

4) navigate into the Contents of the package, to: System/Installation/Packages/

5) copy the System.dmg file out to desktop or other work location

6) rename System.dmg to meaningful name, such as "Snow Leopard 10.6.8 System.dmg"

7) copy this .dmg file to external, bootable, Snow Leopard 10.6.8 system disk (install in /Users/Shared/)

C. Install Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on new MacBook Pro or Mac Pro

via command line:

1) boot MacBook Pro or Mac Pro from external source prepared in B.7

2) open Terminal

3) find the restore target device specification

a) run the command "diskutil list"

b) look for a 650 MB partition, labelled "Recovery HD" (likely disk0s3)

c) the target partition should be immediately prior to the "Recovery HD" partition

d) for a new computer with a 500 GB drive, this partition should be

labelled "Macintosh HD", with a size of 499.2 GB

e) make note of it's Device Identifier, likely disk0s2

4) issue the following asr (Apple Software Restore) command

sudo asr restore --source "/path/to/restore.dmg" --target /dev/disk0s2 --erase

(replace "/path/to/restore.dmg" with the path to the location and name used in step b.7)

5) this process proceeds and completes quickly, about 3-5 minutes. This is due to

the "--erase" parameter; it indicates a block-copy operation

If the process seems slow, likely the "--erase" option was omitted and

the copy is being done as a file-copy operation. Quit (ctl-c) and

examine the command used...

via DiskUtility GUI:

1) boot MacBook Pro or Mac Pro from external source prepared in B.7

2) launch /Applications/Utilities/DiskUtility.app

3) select the computer hard drive (typically "Macintosh HD")

4) click on the "Restore" tab

5) click on the "Image..." button to specify the "Source"

6) navigate to /Users/Shared/ and select the "Snow Leopard 10.6.8 System.dmg" file

7) drag the computer hard drive volume (Macintosh HD) to the "Destination" field

(note: grab the volume, not the disk!!)

8) enable the "Erase destination" checkbox

9) click the "Restore" button

10) in the ensuing "Are you sure?" dialog, click the "Erase" button

11) authenticate with the local admin credentials

Apple Tech recommends leaving the Restore partition alone, and installing in the "Macintosh HD" partition only

commands to know:

- asr

- diskutil (diskutil -list to see partitions)

- hdiutil

Posted on Aug 15, 2011 9:00 AM

364 replies

Apr 25, 2012 1:34 PM in response to Roy Miller

@Tech Harmony,

Yes, your description is correct. Single finger tap/touch and drag works. Also two finger scrolling and four finger swipes up and down work. However, any time you mechanically click down on the trackpad, it doesn't regester that anything has happened. Very unusual.

Apr 25, 2012 2:49 PM in response to tmcbride67

@tmcbride67 Sweet. I Googled a little bit more, approaching this as a regular mechanical/software clicking problem (ironically, lots of Mac folk have had clicking problems without even attempting to do what we are ...but some of that is just an old puffed-up battery preventing clicking).

Here are some potentially relevant fixes:

a) One person suggested deleting some trackpad preferences files from your *Username*/Library/Preferences folder. Specifically "com.apple.driver.AppleBluetootheMultitouch.trackpad.plist" They say they found 3 mouse-related drivers in there but I'm not sure I see them. So quit System Preferences, delete that one file, reboot and fire up Sys Preferences again. However, what's so interesting to me is that the BluetoothMutlitouch trackpad driver is the only preference...perhaps we need that kext installed as well, in addition to the ones you tried (or in lieu of...)

b) Someone had to increase their doubleclick speed in the System Preference because clicks were registering too slowly (or quickly)? This one is a weird one and doesn't seem like it could fix it but you never know.

c) Someone used these PRAM and power reset instructions http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100206215749AAAJzh4to fix their mouse problem.

T_Sem

Level 1

0 points

Apr 25, 2012 9:56 PM in response to Roy Miller

Hi Roy, great detailed instructions.

Thanks very much for the help!

May 12, 2012 4:20 PM in response to T_Sem

Has anyone noticed a new "Recovery HD" volume on their Mac with a "com.apple.recovery.boot" folder inside?

I had previously taken my Mac back from Lion to Snow Leopard (last year), however this new volume has only just shown up in the last day (or two).

Shootist007

Level 6

16,709 points

May 12, 2012 4:27 PM in response to iPotential

Unless you completely erase the hard drive, Booted to a SL install disk and partitioned the drive as one partition, the Lion recovery HD partition got left behind. It can not and will not be created by anything other then installing Lion on Mac.

May 13, 2012 2:04 PM in response to Shootist007

Shootist007 wrote:

Unless you completely erase the hard drive, Booted to a SL install disk and partitioned the drive as one partition, the Lion recovery HD partition got left behind. It can not and will not be created by anything other then installing Lion on Mac.

I didn't erase the hard disk, I think I just reinstalled SL and ran Time Machine's reinstall process. It was so easy at the time and has been great to have Snow Leopard back.

Thanks for the explanation. The disk space is a small sacrifice to have SL instead of Lion. And (maybe after a restart last night) the Recovery HD partition disappeared again from the standard finder view.

Shootist007

Level 6

16,709 points

May 14, 2012 2:27 AM in response to iPotential

So your Mac had SL on it to begin with.

If you open terminal and type diskutil list I bet you see the Recovery HD partition. The Recovery HD should not show up in Finder as it is a Hidden partition.

May 14, 2012 4:21 AM in response to Shootist007

Shootist007 wrote:

So your Mac had SL on it to begin with.

If you open terminal and type diskutil list I bet you see the Recovery HD partition. The Recovery HD should not show up in Finder as it is a Hidden partition.

Yes it was originally a SL machine - holding off any further Mac purchases until Exposé returns.

Your right it does show the Recovery HD and it only uses 650mb - thanks.

Shootist007

Level 6

16,709 points

May 14, 2012 4:29 AM in response to iPotential

Well Good Luck on the Return of Expose.

Yes the Recovery HD is only 650MB. It is NOT Lion nor does it contain the Lion install files. It is a system to re-install Lion by downloading it for the internet and or run certain other features like Disk Utility and terminal.

PC_CP

Level 1

4 points

Jun 24, 2012 1:28 PM in response to Ozblade

Instead of using kexthelper I suggest using this:

http://3rr0rists.net/driver/kext-wizard.html

kextwizzard makes the job that easy.

See the pics in documentation. Deadeasy.

No more fiddling with permission.

It does rebuild the kext-cache too.

On a Mac leave the "extra-folder". It is for Hackintosh's.

Oh,you know Intel-Macs are PC's too, and vice versa?

At least a lot of them, on the cheap converted by owners. FYI, Google for it.

Jul 18, 2012 3:35 AM in response to Roy Miller

7) copy this .dmg file to external, bootable, Snow Leopard 10.6.8 system disk (install in /Users/Shared/)

How to get this bootable.snow Leopard 10.6.8 system disk?external means it is usb device?

mailjeh

Level 1

9 points

Jul 31, 2012 4:50 PM in response to Silly rabbit

I can only think that you are suggesting that Bootcamp can work with a SL disk as though it was a Windows 7 disk, is that true? Nobody is listening to you because you haven't explained yourself. You may understand what you're on about but no one else has any idea.

Dec 2, 2012 5:19 AM in response to Roy Miller

Hello Roy

Thanks for this wonderful tutorial. I had the same issue with a late 2011 iMac. I tried your process but I got stuck at:

7) copy this .dmg file to external, bootable, Snow Leopard 10.6.8 system disk (install in /Users/Shared/)

I have a bootable 10.6.0 installer on an external HD that I normally use to restore. I was unable to see the path /Users/Shared even with all files visible. I am not sure if that is what you were asking but I decided to restore Snow Leopard 10.6.8 System.dmg to a thumb drive. I realise the OS was installed onto the thumb drive and I was able to boot from it. I then cloned the thumb drive onto the HD of the iMac using Carbon Copy Cloner. Everything has been workign fine thus far.

Roy Miller Author

Level 1

31 points

Dec 3, 2012 8:22 AM in response to kagepeint

HI kagepeint,

glad you got it working - I was sure by now that this "short-term" procedure would die a graceful (or not so) death by the end of calendar year 2011!

I believe your difficulty with step 7 was that you were trying to copy the 10.6.8 installer dmg file to a bootable installer disk, rather than a bootable installed disk. The procedure is to have/create/clone an installed system on an external disk. That disk, like any computer with Mac OS X 10.x.x installed, would have the standard directory structure that we work in every day, including the "/Users/" directory, which contains your home directory(s), and one labeled "Share".

If I remember properly, the procedure continues to then boot the new computer from this bootable external disk, and launch the 10.6.8 installer, from which you install Mac OS X 10.6.8 onto the 2011 computer that came with Lion installed.

There are many ways to acheive the install - the key is to be able to boot the Lion-delivered computer from an external drive containing the 10.6.8 installer, and run that installer to populate the computer's internal disk. One could even clone the 10.7.x system to an external disk, and use that to boot the computer and install the 10.6.8 system....

To any who read this far in the thread, it is my humble opion that it is now already past time to be porting oneself to Mac OS X 10.8.x, and move on with the Apple OS, for as long as they continue to produce computers and OS X. I know of many of the reasons for not doing so..., no lectures necessary! ;-)

cheers,

Roy

SteveBel

Level 1

0 points

Feb 7, 2013 6:41 AM in response to Roy Miller

This is THE MOST meaningful post I have read in years!!

Roy, may I aske a very simple question? I have an iMac8,1. and I had all possible combination of OS/bootcamps from Tiger and to ML.

Sometimes it fails to boot from the internal disk and "diskutil list" gives me 13 different entries which i cannot unmount and erase. when i manage to boot it again all normal disk0s1,2,3

Now to my question: Can I completely erase all possible artifacts from the disk, like it was new from the factory, so i can repartition and reinstal OSX?

I assume that would be a sequence of terminal commands

Thanks in advance,

Steve B.

HowTo revert new MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or iMac to Snow Leopard