Three beeps when trying to install snow leopard

I just did a similar upgrade (disk and memory) to a early 2011 MBPro 13. I also got the three beeps, over amd over. And I also read that this was a memory issue. So I opened up the unit and reseated the memory, closed up the unit, and the beeps continued. I tried this 2 or 3 more times, same result. Finally I opened up the unit and put in the original disk. Power the unit up and it booted right up and the system had 16 GB of memory. So much for 3 beeps being memory.

I opened up the unit again and reinserted the disk and made reseated the disk cable. Put the cover back on and booted up. 3 beeps. What &%^^. Finally I decided to just see if I could load the OS.

I went my other mac, redownloaded the Maveriks update and told it not to install. I then followed the instructions to create a bootable USB drive with Mavericks. I inserted this USB drive into the "dead" Mac and powered it up holding the option key to load the boot manager. The boot manager came up, showing the USB drive an my new SSD. No beeps! I said boot off the USB. The Maverisk installed started, but could not find the new SSD. What the &*^&*^.

After staring at it for a minute I realized I needed to format the new SSD BEFORE trying to install from the USB. So I booted the unit holding down the option key once again. It came up and booted from the USB. This time before installing I ran the disk formatter, and formatted the new SSD. Once I did that the installer found the new USB and installed Maveriks on it. After an hour or so the installation was done. I rebooted and had a Macbook with 16 GB of memory and 480 GB SSD! I let it restore my latest time machine backup and 2 hours later I had a machine that was completely upgraded with a ton of memory and a fast SSD.

From my experienced I learned a few things.

1. 3 beeps does not mean the ram is bad. It just means I don;t know how to proceed.
2. Format the drive before attempting to install an OS. I should have remembered that from installing Linux on other systems, but my Windows experience caused me to forget that step.
3. Persistance pays.

Best of luck,

Jerry

This was in response to the original message, not Allan's reply

One more reply for any future readers, I had this issue on a refurbed early 2011 MacBook Pro that I bought through an IBM employee purchase progam. The drive was wiped clean with no OS, and no "grey" disk to install the OS that came with the MBP.

I purchased Snow Leopard 10.6.3 as that is the ONLY Snow Leopard disk available for purchase. Got the 3 beeps. Checked the RAM. All was fine there.

I called Apple and talked to several people who all told me that 10.6.3 should install just fine with this vintage MBP. They told me that the computer most likely had serious problems.

I had 5 days to return the computer for a full refund, and wanted to quickly determine if the computer was faulty or if it was an issue with the Snow Leopard version. I went into the local Apple Store. The genius there told me that 10.6.3 would not install with my early 2011 (as I'd read about here -- thanks guys!). At no cost, he was able to install a version that worked and now I'm very happily up and running with my new-to-me MBP. I will be putting in a new SSD tomorrow, and he said they can also install the OS on that for me at no charge. Nice!

For future readers in this situation, don't always believe what someone on the phone at Apple Tech Support is telling you. If possible, take your machine to the nearest Genius Bar to make sure it's not just an easy fix.

Certain Macs sold between mid 2010 and July 2011 require a minimum 10.6.7 version of Snow Leopard to boot from and install, and the retail version of Snow Leopard is only 10.6.3. The installation can be achieved by:

• Calling 800-SOS-APPL with the model and serial number and ordering a replacement disc, if you do not have the original discs that came with the Mac;

• Installing the retail Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on an external hard drive or partition, upgrading it online to 10.6.8, cloning it and restoring the clone on that Mac;

• Use the slipstreamed version of Snow Leopard 10.6.7 to install on that Mac.

How does one clone it to the Mac from the external HD? Does it have to be a full version or just a bootable clone? Thanks.

I personally followed the slipstreamed approach to having a copy of 10.6.7 available to me at all times. Further my backup strategy does not incorporate cloning.

You can search this forum for other's advice on cloning: a member named Olgethorpe is a good resource for cloning Snow Leopard to those 2010/11 Macs. I see that he is also in this thread, so maybe he will also respond directly.

.

I just called Apple Support (whose number is now 800-275-2273) and he says my iMac was originally equipped with OS 10.7, even though two other sources (appleserialnumberinfo.com and everymac.com) both say it had 10.6.7.

He said I could buy and installed 10.6.3 (which I already purchased and tried, thus the inquirie to this forum), whereupon the computer would then update itself to 10.6.8.

He said there are no original install disks available for this computer, and he seemed miffed by the idea of installing 10.6.3 onto an external drive, updating it, and cloning it to the iMac's internal drive.

He said that if I was successful in installing 10.6.8 it may not work anyway.

I don't have a lot of faith in this guy.

I concur!

Call 800-SOS-APPL with your model number and serial number and ask for replacement of the original discs; about $17 each...

It may be possible that you do have an original Lion iMac for which replacement discs are not available...

Thanks to Michael's and other's advice, and some other research I did on here, I was finally able to get my 2011 iMac to boot up and run on OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard from an external hard drive.

It was a little confusing at first, but once I was able to get past the initial installation of 10.6.3 onto my new hard driving using my wife's 2010 iMac, then updating it online, all else went smoothly.

I would like to take the final 10.6.8 on my external hard drive and burn it onto a DVD to have for emergency starts. Will that work?

And I want to store all my documents - even those created by PowerPC apps on the Snow Leopard external drive - on the iMac's internal drive, where they will be backed up by Time Machine. Will that work too?

Again, thanks for your help. I thought I may have been unable to use this refurbished 2011 machine I recently bought from Apple to run my older software (even Apple SOS told me that), but it turned out I WAS able to use it!

Nicely done! 🙂

Blake wrote:

I would like to take the final 10.6.8 on my external hard drive and burn it onto a DVD to have for emergency starts. Will that work?

You could "clone" it and then use it as such to install for other computers. A DVD boot disc would be horribly slow; but if you want a...

10.6.7 slipstreamed Mac OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120123175902871

Blake wrote:

And I want to store all my documents - even those created by PowerPC apps on the Snow Leopard external drive - on the iMac's internal drive, where they will be backed up by Time Machine. Will that work too?

It should work, and you could clone your Snow Leopard over to the internal drive too; although it would take some backing up and then reinstalling time to do so.

I'm now able to boot up in Snow Leopard from my external hard drive and run my Adobe CS2 apps that are housed on the external drive. However, I am not able to access the document files located on my iMac's internal hard drive. Is there a way to access these while booted from the external drive? Thanks.

Boot into Snow Leopard and run Disk Utility and do a Repair Permissions. If that does not fix it, boot into Mavericks and do the same.