Unable to Downgrade from Lion to Snow Leopard on Macbook Air 1,1 1st Generation

Where did you get the Snow Leopard disk from? The eBay seller sold you an illegal copy of Lion. He should have included the original installer disks that came with the Mac and set it up so when you booted it it was back to factory settings as it was when new. Complain to the eBay seller and get those disks. If you want to install Snow Leopard you'll need a RETAIL disk (you purchase it).

Or contact Apple and order Replacement Original Discs for that model Air. It will be a small fee, around $40. But you will also get the Applications disc that will allow you to install all of the iLife Apps that normally come with every Mac computer.

If you just buy the Snow Leoaprd Retail DVD you will not get those apps for free and have to buy them AND NOT all of them are included with a new iLife purchase. You won't get iDVD or iWEB. You will with the replacement DVD discs.

The OP's Mac came with Leopard 10.5 installed. He needs to get that disk from the seller. If not then from Apple, as you pointed out, + a $$ refund amount from the seller in as much as it will now cost him for something that should have come with the Mac. He then needs to purchase a RETAIL Snow Leopard to run that OS.

sig wrote:

The OP's Mac came with Leopard 10.5 installed. He needs to get that disk from the seller. If not then from Apple, as you pointed out, + a $$ refund amount from the seller in as much as it will now cost him for something that should have come with the Mac. He then needs to purchase a RETAIL Snow Leopard to run that OS.

Also just read, and looked for myself, that Apple Is NO Longer selling Retial Snow Leopard DVDs. All forms of OS X have been removed from the Apple Web Store (Not sure if it would still be available from the Phone line order center like Lion now is). So the OP has only 2 options.

1) Get the original and Snow Leopard upgrade DVDs from the seller. More then likely impossible.

2) Get the original system discs from Apple and then hunt down a Snow Leopard Retail upgrade DVD from someplace like eBay

Or 3) File a complaint with PayPal and eBay about the seller selling pirated software with a computer, goods Not as Described, and send that Air back to the seller for Full ReFund.

I'd do # 3.

"I'd do # 3."

I totally agree! And I would hope he would follow your appraoch.

If you have a Retail Snow Leopard DVD you can try to boot the system with it. If it boots it should install. But to do a proper install you will need to wipe the drive, IE Re-Partition the drive as ONE partition.

In all honesty I would return it. Even if the seller said NO RETURNS or Return with X days and you are over that time limit you can still file a complaint as Goods Not as Described, Pirated Software, and ngeet you money refunded from PP and eBay. Then all you have to do is ship the unit back to the seller and supply him and PP/eBay with the shipping tracking #.

"Unfortunately in this case, the seller had clearly mentioned that the listing was only for MBA and Adapter."

I would file a dispute with PayPal. (I hope you paid that way). Follow Shootist007's recommendation. Goods not as described. Pirated software. (That's a biggy). If PayPal finds in your favor (and I think they will) return the unit and buy from a reputable source. Most sellers on ebay are reputable but they don't know what's involved in selling Macs. Stay away from ebay. You should get the original installer disk set from Apple. You can then still update to Snow Leopard. Have you been able to boot to the retail SL disk from your friend?

You have 2 partitions YOU Created during that install???? The install of what??

I thought you said the Mac came with Lion?

Did you Reinstall Snow Leopard already?

When you boot to the SL install DVD and use Disk Utility what does not appear?

You need to first Repartition the drive AS ONE partition after you boot the Mac from the SL install DVD. That will remove the Lion Recovery HD partition. Although Re-Partitioning and selecting 2 partitions should of removed the R-HD partition. That is if you did the repartitioning when the Mac was booted from the SL install DVD.

Why are you creating 2 partitions? Especicially with only an 80GB drive. There really isn't a need to do that with OS X. In fact unless you are very carefull about where you place your personal files you will end up running out of space on the OS partition. OS X likes to place EVERYTHING, Read that EVERYTHING, into the Users/Username folder. All "I" program Librraries along with a copy of what are in the Libraries by default are placed into the UserName folder.

If you are bootiing the computer from the SL install DVD and it does not see the internal drive at all them there is a problem with the disc you are using to boot the computer or the drive or drive cable.

Post a picture of Disk Utility when started from the SL install DVD.

majrul wrote:

Yes sig, i am able to boot the retail SL disk. There are 2 partitions which i created during installation of Lion on the internal 80 GB Samsung HDD. When i boot using the SL disk, it simply doesn't appears in Disk Utility. So is it true what Shootist007 said that it has to be a single partition? Is that the only reason i am unable to install SL on it? Is there any other reason why the Disk is not appearing in the Disk Utility? The external disk from which i am booting from appears properly along with the paritions it has correctly in the Disk Utility. I read in other topics that Laptops that came out of box with Lion cannot be downgraded to SL, but i don't think that's the case in this early 2008 model.

I'm confused as well.

sig wrote:

I'm confused as well.

Yeah Sig.

Just how did you reinstall Lion on that Mac.

For that Mac to have Lion it had to downloaded from the Mac App Store as a Upgrade to Snow Leopard and registered to the persons Apple ID that pruchased it. when reinstalling Lion on that type of Mac with the upgrade version of Lion at some point it asks for the Apple ID of the person that purchased it. That would be the original owner of that Mac, IE the person you bought it from

So just how did you get a copy of Lion without the original owners Apple ID to do the reinstall?

Sorry but all of this is sounding a little Shady. You bought a Mac off ebay with No discs but yet you have been able to reinstall Lion and have a Snow Leopard disc burnt from a DMG file.

And you have never even considered, or you haven't posted about it, contacting PP and eBay about returning it because of the problems you are now facing because you bought a computer with Pirated software installed on it.

Sorry but I have to go now.

Good Luck and best wishes.