Can I load an image of my iMac which ran Snow Leopard onto a new iMac which runs Mountain Lion?

The Apple Support Communities are an international user to user technical support forum. As a man from Mexico, Spanish is my native tongue. I do not speak English very well, however, I do write in English with the aid of the Mac OS X spelling and grammar checks. I also live in a culture perhaps very very different from your own. When offering advice in the ASC, my comments are not meant to be anything more than helpful and certainly not to be taken as insults.

You are just asking for big issues installing an OS on a new Mac that is two OSes from the past. Snow Leopard does not have the hardware specific software to interface with this Mac successfully.

Don't install a version of Mac OS X earlier than what came with your Mac

Dah•veed wrote:

The Apple Support Communities are an international user to user technical support forum. As a man from Mexico, Spanish is my native tongue. I do not speak English very well, however, I do write in English with the aid of the Mac OS X spelling and grammar checks. I also live in a culture perhaps very very different from your own. When offering advice in the ASC, my comments are not meant to be anything more than helpful and certainly not to be taken as insults.

You are just asking for big issues installing an OS on a new Mac that is two OSes from the past. Snow Leopard does not have the hardware specific software to interface with this Mac successfully.

Don't install a version of Mac OS X earlier than what came with your Mac

Yes, that is very likely true, hence the suggestion to make a new partition and test before committing.

I've looked through this thread and although maybe I've missed it, I haven't seen what iMac you have. In theory at least, you should be able to boot Snow Leopard on an iMac through the mid-2011 models even if it shipped with Lion, since those models have the drivers for Snow. After that no. But those mid-2011 models need Snow as of 10.6.6. If your Snow is earlier than that, it won't boot the new Mac.

What's the model and build of the new Mac?

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

Truthfully .... if you have had this less than 14 days I would return it and look for a refurbished iMac just old enough to run SL, then spend a bit of the cost savings adding Ram until it was full.

WZZZ makes a good point, exactly which iMac do you have?

It's an excellent machine, check the software (applications) on the old one, how many will need replacing, if you're up for that just transfer the data, upgrade the apps and use it.

I bought it a week ago online with specifications that they recommended at university

What does that mean, that you bought the stock model with the specs recommended or you upgraded a stock model to specs that were recommended? If it is a stock, off-the-shelf, model, then you have 14 days to return it. If you even just upgraded the RAM, then it is a special order and it is not returnable unless DOA.

UPDATE - I see on the specs page that you upgraded the CPU and the RAM. So it is yours to keep.

At this point then it is time to upgrade the software. The film school doesn't have software recommendations as well?

I totally agree with Dah.veed, move forward on updating the software, consult the school. Trying to make the old software function will be fruitless, and stifle the creative process as well I suspect.

twistiejoe wrote:

They do have software recommendations, yes. But I only have enough in my budget to buy Logic, not Logic AND a new version of Pro Tools. Also I'm discovering now that I can't seem to use my MBox with this machine, I think, and that means I can't plug in my Midi Keyboard, which also cost a lot of money.

I'm spending lots of money and nothing seems to be compatable 😟

Go to the MBox website and check for updated software.

I totally agree with Dah.veed

I passed out at least a full five minutes when I read that! 😉