I have a macbook air running lion, a snow leopard install CD, and a mac pro also running lion. How do I install snow leopard on my air from that CD? What happened to the utility that did this stuff? Target disk mode requires a firewire port... What am I supposed to do?
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.1)
You don't because the DVD is specific to the hardware of that Mac.
Also it is illegal.
Allan
If you have a 2011 MBA then you cannot run Snow Leopard.
There has never been a "utility" to install Snow Leopard instead of Lion.
First off, it's a 2008 MBA; it came with Snow Leopard.
There was a utility in Snow Leopard called "Remote Install OS from CD" or something that would let me install an OS on a disc from my mac pro to the laptop. It is gone in lion.
EDIT: Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Install_Mac_OS_X
EDIT: It might have come with Leopard, actually. I don't remember. Regardless, it was running 10.6 at some point.
Well, that's certainly more helpful. To downgrade from Lion do the following:
Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.
The utility to which you refer is a way to install from a DVD on the MBA that did not have an optical drive. The utility was on the Leopard discs that came with the computer. You might find it on your Snow Leopard DVD.
Great. How do I boot from the CD if there is no CD drive?
And yes, that's exactly what the utility did. It's also exactly what I need something to do. My files are backed up; I dont' need to "downgrade" so much as re-install. The utility is not part of the CD, sadly.
Here's a suggestion if you don't wish to look for the utility on your Snow Leopard DVD. Get an 8 GB USB flash drive. Format for OS X and clone your Snow Leopard DVD to the flash drive using your other computer.
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Destination means the USB flash drive. Source means the Snow Leopard DVD.
Yeah, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. I don't own an 8 gig flash drive right now. I was so sure that there was a way to do this with another computer's CD-ROM drive... I guess that died with the lost utility.
Well, thanks anyways. I'll see if I can track down a USB volume big enough.
Well, the utility you want should be on the Snow Leopard DVD. It certainly would be on the discs that originally came with your MBA.
It's not on the Snow Leopard DVD. The contents of that are the Install Mac OS X.app, and some Xcode-related packages. No discs came with the MBA, probably because it wouldn't be able to make much use of them without a CD-ROM drive.
It most definitely is on the Snow Leopard DVD. I am in exactly the same position as you are - an older MacBook Air which is having a difficult time running Lion, which I therefore want to revert to Snow Leopard.
You can easily find the required application "Remote Install Mac OS X" on the Snow Leopard DVD by means of an application called "Pacifist"
Once you launch the application, choose "Open Apple Installers".
Once this has completed, simply enter the word "Remote" in the application's search window, then drag "Remote Install Mac OS X.app" to your desktop.
Just to bring up to date any who might be considering reverting to 10.6. It's been almost 2 months since I reverted my Air back to 10.6, and I must say I couldn't be happier. The machine runs much, much quicker. And interestingly - though I don't have any numbers to back this up - I'm pretty sure the battery lasts much longer, and really seems to recharge much more quickly.
How can I revert to Snow Leopard on my Air?
