Can I dual boot Mavericks and Snow Leopard?

If you have the computer's original disks, you can partition the drive to have both Snow Leopard and Mavericks installed, but it's done in the Disk Utility and not the Boot Camp Assistant.

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If it is a Late 2011 model, then you cannot. The earlier models came with a special version of Snow Leopard on DVDs. You can install only that version of Snow Leopard. If you've lost those discs, then you are out of luck.

You do not use Boot Camp for this. Rather, you will use Disk Utility.

To resize the drive do the following:

1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.

2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.

3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)

4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.

You should now have a new volume on the drive.

It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.

If your iMac shipped with OS10.6, you can partition. If it shipped with 10.7 or later, you have to jump through some hoops. The "Mid 2011" iMacs shipped with 10.6; the "Late 2011" iMacs shipped with 10.7.

Do "About this Mac" from your Apple menu and then click the "More Info" button to get something like this:

The line I've indicated with the red arrow is your model description.

EDIT: with all the forum slowness, you beat me, Kappy!

No, that procedure will partition your drive, but you still need the disk to install Snow Leopard on the newly created partition.

It will create a second partition. You still need to install Snow Leopard from your installer DVD that came with your computer. That disc installs a special version of Snow Leopard - 10.6.6.

Install Snow Leopard

1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came

with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.

After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see

a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.

2. Proceed to the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.

Remember to select the new partition you made as the target for the installation. If

you don't, then you will end up installing Snow Leopard over your Mavericks system.

3. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup

Assistant. After you finish Setup Assistant will complete the installation after which

you will be running a fresh install of OS X. You can now begin the update process

by opening Software Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your

installation current.

Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.