Error message when trying to install snow leopard

any ideas about why this is happening or how to trouble shoot?

It's hard to formulate any ideas without knowing what the error is, or what the error message says if there is one.

See the following:

How to Install OS X Updates Successfully

A. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions:

Boot from your current OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.

If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:

1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

C. Important: Please read before installing:

1. If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is complete and you've restarted.
2. You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)
3. The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update. While the installation is in progress do not use the computer.

D. To upgrade:

Purchase the Snow Leopard Retail DVD.

Boot From The OS X Installer Disc:

1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

E. If updating:

1. Download and install update(s)
2. Use Software Update, or
3. Download standalone updater(s).

I suggest you backup your Tiger system, then boot from the Snow Leopard DVD, use Disk Utility to erase your hard drive, then install Snow Leopard. You can then selectively restore your files from your backup. To make this process easy be sure to create your new Snow Leopard user account with the same username that you have for your Tiger account. Any third-party software that you have you should reinstall rather than trying to copy from the Tiger backup.

rblatt0311 wrote:

Hello,

I just tried to install snow leopard version 10.6 and get an error message mid installation that kicks the cd out of the drive and stalls. I can't complete the installation. I have a macbook pro 1,1 with 1.83 ghz processor with 1gb of ram and 25 gb of harddrive space left. i currently have version 10.4.11. any ideas about why this is happening or how to trouble shoot?

No sweat,

First thing you need to do is get a external drive, USB 2,1 would be fine for that machine.

Copy all your users files off of it to the storage drive, if you have trouble, format it the defaut Mac setting in Disk Utility. copy all your files you need to save to it and disconnect.

Next, follow this install Snow Leopard User Tip and you'll be on Snow Leopard.

How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

Be sure to follow the Disk Utility > Erase with Zero directions correctly, because your upgrade problem likely has to do with some bad sectors on drive and the installer could not read those files, thus it couldn't proceed with the install.

The Disk Uitlity > Zero wlll fix that.

Jsut FYI your programs are all going to be gone, they won't run in 10.6 anyway.

However the free LibreOffice works well and I know of some other freebie software too.

Just know you can't upgrade to 10.7 on that machine, but 10.6.8 will be good for it.

Good Luck and tell me how it went. 🙂

I suggest that before you try any of the suggestions mentioned here, you let us know what the error message you got was, as stevejobsfan0123 suggested. This should give us an idea of what's wrong & the easiest way to fix it, without putting you through a lot of unnecessary work.

If you follow Apple's advice about how to install Snow Leopard, you do not need to repair the disk or permissions -- the installer ignores existing permissions since it runs as root & it does the equivalent of Disk Utility's verify disk step before beginning any installation. (If you get an error at this point, you can run the disk repair; otherwise you don't need to do that.)

The installer also has a feature that will move incompatible software apps to a special folder. This works best if you start the install as Apple suggests because it allows the installer to "phone home" to Apple to update the database of incompatible apps. Obviously, it doesn't work at all if the drive has been erased.

Only under certain conditions rarely encountered will a "zero erase" map out bad sectors -- the procedure does not force the drive to read back data after writing the zeros, which is the only way bad sectors can be detected. If the drive isn't automatically finding & mapping out bad sectors in normal use, it is defective & should be replaced.