Will the new 2012 Mac pros boot on Snow Leopard (10.6.8, installed on a HD in a 2008 Mac pro and then moved to the 2012 model).

The basic hardware has not changed since the 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 was issued. The firmware got some small tweaks for the 2010 5,1 to support Westmere processors.

So every expectation is that the newest Mac Pro models will run whatever would run on the original 2009 4,1 when issued. As you are seeing, it is no small feat to get it there.

But nobody really knows, and Apple does not encourage hobbysists to stray from the beaten path of exactly what is sold in the Store.

Tony https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4051765?tstart=0 Never got back and until someone who received a "new" Mac Pro 5,1 (5,2? just for laughs?) to know.

Apple ties OS build and fiirmware and Mac ID.

It should after all nothing really changed. In this case it has the same latest firmware that shipped iwth some 2010s

We had discussions about this when Mac Pro 2010 started shipping with Lion last... summer/fall.

A true Lion only system ships not only without DVDs, and with Lion, but can do a network install (it grabs a small boot loader) to pull down the installer and has enough code in the firmware. Same with AHT.

A. It (10.6.8) works and you are fine

B. It works only with Lion.

What is the real question? do you need to run 10.6.8?

There is a 1/20 chance too that it has a later build of 10.7.4, right?

Bing: Mac OS X Builds:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1159#mac_pro

Bob Gale wrote:

I keep getting fuzzy answers on this (firmware, future updates, etc.). I can make a 2 partition HD on my 2008 (3.1), with Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on 1, and Lion on the other, and then put this HD in the 2012 3.06ghz. Will it work? (It does on the 2010 2.93ghz).

If you already have the 2012 Mac Pro, the easiest thing to do is to just try it. Back up the current Snow Leopard partition first, then do the drive transfer. Finally, run the 10.6.8 combo updater. It was created before the 2012 Mac Pro's but if the primary change is a CPU speed tweak, there's a good chance the combo updater will install whatever software is necessary to support the newer components (e.g., the newer video card).

It works.

I just picked up two Mac Pros today and I'm installing Snow Leopard on them right now. I'm using the DVD media that came with a 2010 Mac Pro.

As long as you have a copy of a Mac Pro 5,1 installation DVD the installation appears to work just fine. If you take the time to archive the Mountain Lion OS that shipped on the drive you can always reinstall it later. Just to make sure there were no lingering issues with the Mountain Lion system files I used the 10.6 disk to make a disk image of the hard drive to an external hard drive, erased the 'Macintosh HD' partition after it was done then installed on the clean drive.

Steps I used to get Snow Leopard on a computer shipped with Mountain Lion...

1. Booted the new computer with an existing Mac Pro 5,1 installation DVD.
2. Used the Disk Utility on the boot DVD to create a disk image of the Mountain Lion installation on an external drive.
3. Erased the 'Macintosh HD' partition, I left the 10.8 Recovery Disk partition intact.
4. Exited Disk Utility.
5. The installation window indicated the 10.6 OS could be installed on the erased drive but it would not be bootable. Used the 'Go Back' button to return to the beginning of the install and then advanced forward again.
6. The icon of the drive was now accessible and it allowed me to select the Customize button to install QuickTime 7 (and Rosetta if I wished).
7. Finished up with the Applications installation after the new computer rebooted.

After Mountain Lion matures a little bit and the applications I use are updated I'll backup the computer and use the recovery partition to update to the latest version.