How can I update Mac OS X 10.5.8 into Mac OS X 10.6?

Upgrading to Mountain Lion

You can upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $19.99. To access the App Store you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later installed.

If you need to purchase Snow Leopard you can still purchase a copy from Apple's online store's telesales agents.[1-800-MY-APPLE (1-800-692-7753) or Customer Service and Sales Support at 1-800-676-2775.] Ask for a Sales Representative.

Third-party sources for Snow Leopard are:

Snow Leopard from Amazon.com

Snow Leopard from eBay

After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store.

If you need to purchase Lion call 1-800-692-7753 or 1-800-676-2775. Ask for a Sales Representative. They will check your Apple ID, and email you a code and instructions. The cost is $29.99 (as it was before) plus tax. It's a download.

Be sure your computer meets the minimum requirements:

Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications.

Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion

1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
7. Xserve (Early 2009)

Are my applications compatible?

See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps - App compatibility and feature support for OS X & iOS.

Am I eligible for the free upgrade?

See Apple - Free OS X Mountain Lion upgrade Program.

For a complete How-To introduction from Apple see Apple - Upgrade your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion.

Renata, you need to obtain a 10.6 DVD like as this one. You may be able to order one from an Apple Store, depending on where you live. Give them a call.

Once you install the 10.6 OS, then update it to 10.6.8, then online through the Mac App Store you can buy 10.8 Mountain Lion.

If u have another mac and its 10.6.8 or higher u can do it easily

1. Purchase and download Lion from the Mac App Store (or use your up-to-date redemption code), and when the download is finished, the Mountain Lion installer will load. Quit the installer (press Command-Q) and go to the Application folder on your system.
   Locate and right-click the Mountain Lion installer to show its contents (click for larger view).(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)If you have already installed Mountain Lion, the installer will have been automatically deleted from your system. In this case, you can go to the Purchases section of the App Store and redownload the installer.
2. Right-click the "Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion" application in the Applications folder, and choose "Show package contents."
3. In the new window that opens, go to the Contents > SharedSupport folder and locate the file called "InstallESD.dmg."
4. Open Disk Utility (in the Applications > Utilities folder) and drag the InstallESD.dmg image to the device sidebar, where it should appear under your various disk and volumes listings.
5. In Disk Utility select the InstallESD.dmg file, and then you can click the Burn icon in Disk Utility's toolbar to burn the image to a DVD (single-layer 4.7GB discs do not have enough space, so use dual-layer 8.5GB discs). If you wish to create a USB or FireWire install drive instead, then continue on to step 6.
6. Connect a spare USB or FireWire drive that has at least 6GB of capacity, which should show up in Disk Utility. Optionally partition it by selecting it and using the Partition tab to split it into two logical volumes (one for the Mountain Lion installer and the other for extra storage space) by clicking the plus button to create a new partition, and then setting the first partition to be 4.8GB in size.
Drag the destination drive to the Destination field, and drag the InstallESD.dmg image to the Source field.(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)
7. Select the InstallESD.dmg file in Disk Utility and click the Restore tab that appears in the main Disk Utility window. When you do this you should see the disk image appear in the Source field, but if not then drag it there.
8. Drag your destination drive (the desired USB or FireWire drive volume) to the Destination field, and then click the Restore button. Confirm you would like to do this, and when complete you should have a fully bootable Mountain Lion installation drive.

This process should work as described but the restoration process could fail with an error. You can overcome this by first mounting the InstallESD.dmg file and then using the mounted volume as the Source for the restoration, instead of the disk image file itself.If restoring the InstallESD.dmg file directly does not work, then first mount it and restore the "Mac OS X Install ESD" volume that appears (click for larger view).(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

To do this, first select the InstallESD.dmg file in the Disk Utility sidebar and click the Open button in the Disk Utility toolbar. When mounted, you will see a volume name appear called "Mac OS X Install ESD" underneath the image file. In the Restore tab in Disk Utility, drag this new volume to the Source field, and then repeat step 8 above to restore it to your drive of choice (special thanks to MacFixIt reader Michael A. for this tip).

When Disk Utility creates the drive in this manner, all files on it will be erased and replaced with the restored data; however, if you initially partitioned the drive (see step 6 above), then you can still use the drive's secondary volume for other purposes in addition to being a Mountain Lion install source.

Hi

This sounds a little bit scary. A couple of questions:

Can an external hard drive be used?

Regarding my external HD, I have a 2 TB already connected that is partitioned into 1 TB divisions. On one I am running Time Machine. On the other I have a manual archive that I maintain myself for files I access often but wanted to move off my iMac HD but did not want to have deleted as TM does eventually. Both partitions have plenty of space on them.

Two things:

Can I use this to create the copy to get 10.6 (I am also currently running 10.5.8)?

And, are these backups sufficient for restoration if this whole thing crashes??

1)Yes u can use your hd as long is it has enough memory .

2)Hey dont be afraid of errors while doing this . Why?

Because for the same money you can buy mac os disk that u can install on two , three , four .... computers

3)U can do this operation with all mac os but im afraid u wont find it in app store.

Hi!

I just want to make sure I understand. After burning to DVD, you can use that to update your 10.5.8 to 10.6?

Thanks for the help!

Yes u can burn mac os 10.6.8 on DVD and then ull be able to update computer infinite times.

Thanks for this advice. Just to clarify EriLam's question:

Can you upgrade purely from leopard to 10.6 (Snow Leopard) using the above option of mounting from the installESD.dmg that is bundled in Mountain Lion?

will this not just upgrade all devices to Mountain Lion? I do not wish to upgrade higher than 10.6.8 on this iMac

Here's my experience trying to upgrade my 2006 iMac G5 from 10.5.8 to 10.6 so that I can sync iTunes with my new iPhone 5:

Yesterday: Spent nearly an hour on the phone with applecare rep (most of the time on hold while she checked on things) to establish that I need 10.6, that my iMac can handle 10.6, that my iMac has enough memory, that 10.6 is available, then transferred to a sales agent to place the order which took extra time because the sales agent had to ask me to repeat my credit card number three times because she couldn't seem to get it enetered correctly. Delivery is scheduled for Nov. 19 "becuase there's high demand and it's no longer available at Apple stores."

Today: Received cancellation notice: "Apple no longer offers the MC588Z/A (MAC OS X 10.6.3 SLSVR UNLCL SI) that you requested. As a result, it has been removed from your order. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

Spent another 36 minutes on phone while sales agent discovered that the agent yesterday mistakenly placed an order for the server addition MC588Z/A. Placed another order for the correct part number MC573Z/A. Repeated credit card # twice because sales agent's screen timed out. Sales agent tells me delivery is Oct. 23.

A few minutes later, receive order confirmation notice for part number MC588Z/A with delivery scheduled for Nov. 20!!!!!!!

Debating now whether to call back or just wait for the cancellation notice.

upgrade my 2006 iMac G5 from 10.5.8 to 10.6 so that I can sync iTunes with my new iPhone 5:

Not possible. Snow Leopard can only run on an Intel Mac, NOT on your PPC G5.

Not PPC, Intel-based Core Duo iMac G5

Intel-based Core Duo iMac G5

There is no such thing. Would you please click on the Apple icon and on About this Mac, and quote what it says, but leave out the erial number.

Klaus is correct. The iMac iSight (IBM PPC CPU) G5 and the first year and a half iMac Intels look identical on the outside, but are very different beasts on the inside. The former can only upgrade to 10.5.8, the latter can upgrade either to 10.6.8 or 10.7.5 depending where or not it had the '2' between Core and Duo in the name.

Thanks for this, it would only be so fitting if, after all that time on the phone with Applecare it turns out they were wrong, even after asking me for the serial number.

Processor: 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo

Hardware Overview:

iMac

iMac4,1

Intel Core Duo

1.83 GHz

Processors: 1

Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 2 MB

Memory: 2 GB

You can upgrade to 10.6.8, but not 10.7 or later. That means your machine will not support iCloud fully unless you install Windows 7 on it.