Clean install of OS X 10.6
I have an early 2008 Mac. It is completely backed up and all data is safe.
I would like to do a clean install of Snow Leopard 10.6 and then upgrade to Lion 10.7 and update from there to 10.7.5 which is as far as I can go on this particular Macbook. I have good reason to do a fresh clean install and will briefly explain it. I originally upgraded from Leopard to 10.6 and then forward to Lion. Right up to 10.6.8 the computer worked perfectly as soon as I installed Lion 10.7 user permissions became corrupted. I could not delete or install files no matter what I set permissions to. I followed all the advice on here including repairing permissions, resetting ACL's and entering specific corrective code in terminal of which nothing worked. I now want to (have no choice) to start from fresh with 10.6 as I have exhausted all options of repairing permissions.
I am ready to erase my drive in the disk utility and I see the following 2 items...
- Macintosh HD 120.03GB
- disk1 Mac OS X Base System Capacity 1.52 GB Avail 378.5MB
Here are my 3 questions ...
1. Do I erase 'disk1' (the OS X base system) and even if I do I can't install Leopard there as it's over 6GB and disk1 is only 1.52GB?
2. Do I leave disk1 alone and just install 10.6 on the main hard drive?
3. Is there anything else that is important to know when erasing the disk(s) prior to clean installing 10.6?
I have the disks for both 10.6 and 10.7 (and understand I have to do the updates up to 10.6.8 prior to 10.7 and am confident installing them once I know how and what to erase first.
Please note that I am not technical enough to understand complex terminology, so simple explanation is really appreciated. I was good to go until I saw disk1 and that has thrown me off. Thank you!
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6)