Is there really no way to install rosetta on Lion?

Can't I install Rosetta on Lion somehow?

Do I really have to downgrade to Snow Leopard or there's an other way to install rosetta on Lion? I have Leopard and Snow Leopard disks. Can't I install any features on Lion?

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Apr 27, 2013 12:07 AM

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11 replies

Apr 27, 2013 12:13 AM in response to AnaMusic

So the answer is there's no way to install rosetta on Lion?

That's a bit bad, because I do need Rosetta a lot, but I also need to run Lion, because some applications support only 10.7 .

I dont want to dual boot (or use virtual machine), because my hard drive is only 120GB and I really need that space.

There's no point to upgrade harddrive, because Lion is the last OS that will run on my mac anyways.

Apr 27, 2013 1:32 AM in response to White-1

No, you can't. You need a partition.


But with 1TB free, you can use Disk Utility to resize the space to free up enough to be able to install SL.

This is a non destructive operation, but never say never 🙂, you better have a copy of your data somewhere.

What I am not sure of is, whether you can use the second partition that is placed after a first data partition, as a boot partition.

If someone else here can confirm.

Apr 27, 2013 4:56 AM in response to White-1

I thought you said you only had 120GB. Now you say you have a 2TB drive with 1 TB free. Is that an external drive.


But you can only install snow leopard if your system originally came with snow leopard or a previous version of os x.

Newer mac computers can't use snow leopard as snow leopard doesn't have the right drivers for the new hardware.

White-1 wrote:


I have 2TB harddrive and 1TB is used. Can I installed Snow Leopard to some other folder, so I wouldnt lose my files or it'll earse all of my data?
How to do it?

Apr 27, 2013 5:48 AM in response to Alberto Ravasio

Yeah, 2TB hard drive is extrenal.

I am sorry for the confusing you. My MacBook is Early 2008, it came with Leopard, but I also bought Snow Leopard back in 2010.

Now I am using Lion, which I bought the last year (and also upgraded the RAM because of Lion. It had 1GB of RAM and now it has 4)

It cannot run Mountain Lion, which honestly was a big disappointment for me. And I also cant run Rosetta (older apps that I've bought) on Lion.

That's pretty sad.

Apr 27, 2013 8:06 AM in response to White-1

And I also cant run Rosetta (older apps that I've bought) on Lion.


This has been a fact since mid 2011 when Lion was first introduced.


I've maintained a bootable Snow Leopard partition since then because I use a PPC application occasionally.


The process is quite easy - you can simply install it on a new partition on the external drive and boot into it when needed.

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Is there really no way to install rosetta on Lion?

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