Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer

Yup, though it does depend on the age of the Mac, and the release of the OS you're trying to install from disk.

For instance, the Mac Pro I'm on right now shipped with 10.6.4. The retail 10.6.3 disk will not for any reason install on this Mac, due to the driver issue. The drivers for this Mac are not on the retail disk, so it won't let me proceed.

If you're working at it the other way, then it normally doesn't matter. Our other Mac Pro (a 2008 model) shipped with Leopard, 10.5.x. The retail SL 10.6.3 of course works on that one because the Mac is older than the retail disk and has its drivers on the 10.6.3 disk. Apply that to generally any Mac.

What you don't get with the retail disks are the bundled software. If I were to wipe the drive on the older Mac using the 10.6.3 retail disk and reinstall, none of the iLife apps would be included. Those only exist on the bundled gray disks the Mac shipped with.

Want to install Mavericks to my iMac 20" 2007. Already make a bootable Mavericks Installer in my USB (search this thing easily in google). After restart and press the option key, the USB did not detected by my iMac and want to install from Mac OS X DVD that came with the iMac, instead a successful install i got the dooms day message "Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer". Research a ton of Apple Discussions forum also. After a long haul of try and still got an error. Got an idea to partition the Macintosh HD to 2 partition. 1st partition is the main HD, the 2nd is the (8GB) installer. Plug my installer USB (Disk Utility will detect it). Restore the Installer USB to the 2nd partition of the Macintosh HD (installer partition). And restart and press the option key. Voila, the 2nd partition detected and you can install from there! Solved my problem.

Hope this helps.

I just solved the "Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer" on two computers - one a 2007 Macbook Pro, and the other a 2005 iMac with an upgraded hard drive.

On both computers, trying to install with a 10.6.7 bootable USB gave me the error "Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer". This happened no matter what I did with the partition creation.

I tried again with a Snow Leopard Retail 10.6 image. On both machines, the install worked. After installing, I was able to update to 10.6.8 through the online updates.

Comments on this thread about the grey disks were very helpful - they only contain the drivers for the specific computer they were released for. Your best bet is to buy the 10.6.0 DVD, or in a pinch, download the Leopard 10.6.0 dmg, and create a bootable USB from this. Still buy the DVD for peace of mind and karma points.

I found the directions here for creating a bootable and installable USB drive to be helpful:

http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-bootable-usb-drive-with- os-x-snow-leopard--cms-21491

=k

Same problem. Except I can't get my original installation DVD, because it never existed. The one I'm using, I bought off of Amazon.

Thank you very much, upgrading just to 10.6 worked!