how am i supposed to install snow leopard?

Your problem, hardware or software, may not be exactly the same as that of the original poster of this older thread, and it can be very confusing for everybody if we try to answer more than one question in each thread, which can also result in you applying the wrong advice to your particular problem.

In order for us to give your problem our proper attention to try to solve it, would you kindly start your own thread, describing the trouble you are having in the fullest detail, including completing your details to show what Mac or iDevice you are using, what operating system, and what version of the application in question. Please remember to post in the forum relevant to your hardware or version of OS X. A full list of all the support forums is here:

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

Upgrade Paths to Snow Leopard, Lion, and/or 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.

Upgrading to Snow Leopard

You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard — Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.

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. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.

Snow Leopard General Requirements

1. Mac computer with an Intel processor

2. 1GB of memory

3. 5GB of available disk space

4. DVD drive for installation

5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider;

fees may apply.

6. Some features require Apple’s iCloud services; fees and

terms apply.

Upgrading to Lion

If your computer does not meet the requirements to install Mountain Lion, it may still meet the requirements to install Lion.

You can purchase Lion by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service — this includes international calling numbers. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax. It's a download. You will get an email containing a redemption code that you then use at the Mac App Store to download Lion. Save a copy of that installer to your Downloads folder because the installer deletes itself at the end of the installation.

Lion System Requirements

1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7,

or Xeon processor

2. 2GB of memory

3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)

4. 7GB of available space

5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.

Upgrading to Mountain Lion

To upgrade to Mountain Lion you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Purchase and download Mountain Lion from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Mountain Lion is $19.99 plus tax. The file is quite large, over 4 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.

OS X Mountain Lion — System Requirements

Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion

1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) — Model Identifier 7,1 or later

2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) —

Model Identifier 5,1 or later

3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) — Model Identifier 3,1 or later

4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) — Model Identifier 2,1 or later

5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) — Model Identifier 3,1 or later

6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) — Model Identifier 3,1 or later

7. Xserve (Early 2009) — Model Identifier 3,1 or later

To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.

Are my applications compatible?

See App Compatibility Table — RoaringApps.

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

Either you have a dirty or scratchy disc - clean with lint-free cloth and rubbing alcohol; or, a dysfunctional optical drive.

Remote Disc, Migration, or Remote Install Mac OS X and wireless 802.11n networks

Using wireless routers with WEP and Remote Install Mac OS X

Reinstalling software using Remote Install Mac OS X v10.5 and v10.6

These may be old but they should still generally apply.

MacBook Air, Mac mini- How to use Remote Disc to share DVDs or CDs from a Mac or Windows-based compu…

MacBook Air- Can't see Remote Disc (DVD or CD Sharing) host computer on the network

DVD or CD sharing- Using Remote Disc

You can try using the DVD in a different Mac to see if it can be read. If it can, then you can clone it to a flash drive.

woodsntrees wrote:

Think I'll just go and get my $20 back from apple and give up.

You have a defective disk that's all, call Apple and make arrangements for a exchange.

The only other thing I can think of is you don't have 5GB of space free on the boot drive, look in Activity Monitor.

Another thing, look at your RAM under the Apple menu > About this Mac it needs to be 1GB, but your machine can handle 2GB.

Your machine can only go to 10.6.8 max, so no Lion funny buisness for you. 🙂

I just had a similar experience, but I was trying to erase the startup HDD on my 2007 Mac Mini (since I am selling it) which was upgraded to SnowLeopard. I thought I had to start with the original disk, 10.4, and it rejected that every time, same with 10.5 and 10.6. So I tried shutting down, then put the disk in, and hold the C key as I started up. It would allow me to boot from the DVD this time, but rejected the install, saying "this operating system can not be installed on this computer". It did not give me the option to erase the drive and reinstall as new either. Same thing happened with 10.5. Finally, using this startup process, the software allowed me to wipe the HDD, and install SnowLeopard 10.6 as a new install. It was really tempting to give up assuming the drive Superdrive had god bad, but I was convinced that was not the case. I/m sure you have moved on long ago, but I post this for the sake of others who might experience this problem.

Hi woodsntrees, did you ever resolve this issue??? I'm having the same problem right now! Would love to know if you fixed it. Cheers