Mac os x question

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Level 1

12 points

Mac os x question

I wrote another post earlier about my mac's os problems. when i bought this second hand mac, the first owner told me it was a 2010 model that was running mavericks. but everyone was telling me that the original os x was snow leopard, well i bought snow leopard. well i cant get my computer to run snow leopard. The disk utilities is saying that the base os x is Mavericks.

So i am wondering, did the first owner and mess up and gave me a great deal on my mac book pro or is it just the way apple is and cant down grade on os x?

Mavericks runs kinda slow, that is why i wanted to down grade to snow. I do have both os x, so i can do a fresh install either way.

second question, i was thinking of changing out hard drives, bc i am running a 160 gb in the mac, and i also have another 1 tb hard drive in another computer, that is still pretty brand new (windows thou)?

So what should I do?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 21, 2015 10:23 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 21, 2015 11:28 AM in response to Nathanal 1

All of the 2010 MacBook Pro shipped with OS X 10.6.3 (Snow Leopard), and this retail DVD is available for purchase from the Apple Online store only. Your previous owner failed to revert the MBP back to 10.6.3, and then upgrade to 10.6.8 — and left the machine installed with Mavericks.

Back up your personal data. Boot from the Snow Leopard DVD by pressing and holding the option key on a fresh boot. Once booted to the DVD, select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, and select your internal hard drive name. The next step will wipe Mavericks, and the Recovery partition. Click Partition, and choose single partition, OS X Extended, and option is GUID. This will pave a single partition that will is now suitable for installing Snow Leopard.

Quit Disk Utilities and Utilities — proceed with the install, and when presented with the devices available for install, choose the name (Macintosh HD) you gave your intended boot partition. The installer will finish installing the base Snow Leopard implementation. Reboot, provide the appropriate information using the same user name as your backed up personal data. From the Apple icon menu, choose Software Update until nothing is available to install.

The iFixit and MacSales sites have videos on hard drive replacement for this machine. Consider a larger size SSD for the boot drive, and put that 1TB drive in an external enclosure for Time Machine backups. You will need to use Disk Utility to reformat it as OS X Extended for Time Machine. If not Time Machine use, then reformat it as OS X Extended or FAT32.

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Answer 2

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 21, 2015 11:25 AM in response to VikingOSX

thanks,

ok will try that. If i have any other problems, i will replay back again.

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Answer 3

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 21, 2015 1:53 PM in response to Nathanal 1

hey vikingosx,

ok i have a problem, i am in the disk utilities part like you said. but the thing is when i select the partition layout, the options button does not light up. and cant select anything. also when i ran the cd it stills loads up as mavericks. even off the cd when ran from the main window. the window has the large black x inside of it. it shows a small icon like the picttuced disc, with a white circle and line threw it, when i click on it it says that i cant use that version with the os x i have insatlled already. then it goes.....you have "install mac os x 23.1.1."

what now change hard drive and follow the directions again?

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Nov 22, 2015 9:30 AM in response to Nathanal 1

Are you booted off the DVD? If so, open Disk Utility, select the hard drive, then the erase tab. Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with Option GUID. Then try the OS installation.

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Answer 5

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 23, 2015 2:00 PM in response to Eric Root

actually i have tried that. I don't still don't have the option to click on the button to make it a GUID selection. I have even tried to shut down and redo the install from the dvd ( while pressing the command and r button or pressing the option button, etc), still can't do anything.

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Answer 6

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 23, 2015 3:25 PM in response to Nathanal 1

ok here is a update, i completely shut down the computer, then on restart i pressed and held down the option button, i saw the dvd and the hard drive. i selected the dvd, the was grey with the apple icon, waited awhile but nothing happened. should i just update to el captain or what?

All help is welcome. thanks

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Answer 7

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Nov 24, 2015 10:22 AM in response to Nathanal 1

If the DVD is grey, did you get it from the original owner? If it is from another computer, the grey disk will not work with your computer. You can get a Snow Leopard disk by using the link below.

Snow Leopard Purchase

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Answer 8

Nov 24, 2015 10:42 AM in response to Eric Root

The first paragraph of my post above. 😉

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Answer 9

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 24, 2015 9:50 PM in response to VikingOSX

The disc was bought from Apple, brand new. I am trying Viking way again. But when I start I see three options the hd the dis and a internet option. i selected the disc. I am seeing a the grey screen with a grey apple logo. How long should I wait for it to go thre. Or should I just look into a new hard drive then reinstall snow leopar?

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Answer 10

Nov 24, 2015 10:27 PM in response to Nathanal 1

Why not just install 10.11. If you can still boot into the Mac download it via the App Store and just do a clean install with a usb installer.

Create a bootable installer for OS X - Apple Support

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Answer 11

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 24, 2015 10:31 PM in response to Community User

i would have, but i have heard to many bad reports about it. it just that mavericks seems to be running slow for me. not unless 10.11 will make it sped up a bit with out reinstalling new memory.

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Answer 12

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 24, 2015 10:34 PM in response to Nathanal 1

acm001, also i already have a usb bootable disc for mavericks and a snow leopard dvd, that i bought from apple.

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Answer 13

Nov 24, 2015 11:03 PM in response to Nathanal 1

With all the issues your having trying to install snow leopard and Mavericks running slow you'd be better off doing a clean install of 10.11 anyway. You're going round in circles. Erase and clean install to eliminate all traces of previous owner and any os issues they might have had.

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Answer 14

Nathanal 1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 24, 2015 11:04 PM in response to Community User

ok how would I do that? a clean install and all.

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Answer 15

Nov 24, 2015 11:29 PM in response to Nathanal 1

http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/01/clean-install-os-x-el-capitan-mac/

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