Install mavericks on new partition

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Level 1

18 points

Install mavericks on new partition

Hi all ...

I'm trying and failing to install Mavericks on a new partition on my iMac which is currently running on El Capitan.

I need run Mavericks to be able to use the functionality of some Apps that El Capitan no longer supports.

I've created my new partition on my internal HD and have the Mavericks installer downloaded from the App Store but when I double click on the installer Mavericks is unable to install this older program.

I know that I can install Mavericks on an external HD but I'm looking to undertake video editing and from past experience video editing from an external drive on my iMac is just to slow to be effective.

Any help would be much appreciated.

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Feb 14, 2016 1:05 PM

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Answer 1

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 14, 2016 1:09 PM in response to Steve Burke

What model is the Mac? Macs have a minimum OS so newer Macs may not run older OS's.

The 'System Information' report will show that…

Apple menu > Hold the option key down on the keyboard (a.k.a. alt key). Select System Information… from the menu.

What model identifier do you have?

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Answer 2

Steve Burke Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 14, 2016 1:58 PM in response to Drew Reece

Hi Drew

I have a late 2009 iMac with e Model Identifier: iMac11,1

I still have the install discs (somewhere I think) and I do not have an access to Mavericks on a Time Machine backup.

I hope this helps?

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Answer 3

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 14, 2016 2:55 PM in response to Steve Burke

According to http://mactracker.ca your model shipped with 10.6 so it is capable of running up to the latest version (10.11). You need the purchase within your App Store account to download it because Apple remove older versions from the store.

Is the installer within the Applications folder of the 10.11 boot disk or somewhere else? I think it helps if it on the system disk. How much free space does the 10.11 disk have - I think it may expand the size of the installer a little before rebooting.

Personally I would write it to a USB flash drive to see if the installer runs from there…

Create a bootable installer for OS X - Apple Support

That will allow you to hold the option key (a.k.a alt) on startup & select it in the boot picker. It may get around any issue that 10.11 may be causing, it is unclear to me what part fails for you, does 10.11 refuse to run it at all?

If you can't install to the internal disk try an external disk - it may be possible to clone the installation over & have it work internally once it is setup. Obviously it would be better to investigate why it can't install if that is still the case when running from the USB installer.

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Feb 14, 2016 4:37 PM in response to Steve Burke

You can make a bootable USB stick to install using this free program which will do all the work for you. Download the installer and quit it. Use the program below and then boot as Drew suggested.

Bootable USB Flash Drive – Diskmaker X

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Answer 5

Steve Burke Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 15, 2016 5:27 AM in response to Eric Root

El Capitan works fine but you loose functionality with iDVD and you can't use iMove HD (which is the best version of iMovie by far). The experts over in the iDVD forum recommend creating a separate partition and installing Mavericks onto it. That way you can use the App to their full potential on one partition and still run the latest software on the main partition.

When I try to install Mavericks after I have dragged the App into the new partition it fails to open. Also When I restart holing the 'alt' key the new partition is not made available to boot from.

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Answer 6

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 15, 2016 7:53 AM in response to Steve Burke

Steve Burke wrote:

When I try to install Mavericks after I have dragged the App into the new partition it fails to open. Also When I restart holing the 'alt' key the new partition is not made available to boot from.

That is not how the installer works - please leave it in the Applications folder on your system disk as I mentioned earlier & retry.

If it fails make a USB installer as mentioned above.

The 'alt' key will not show the installer as bootable if you just drag it to a disk - because it isn't bootable!

Running the installer will create a temporary bootable version of the installer on the system disk which is cleaned up when the installer completes.

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Answer 7

Steve Burke Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 15, 2016 10:30 AM in response to Drew Reece

So I've managed to do it ...

I inserted my original installer disc and restarted holding down the alt key.

I then ran the disc and installed the OS (Snow Leopard) choosing the new partition (HD) to install it on ... SUCCESS! I now have two partitions operating two different operating systems.

Thanks to all for your help with this

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Answer 8

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 15, 2016 11:01 AM in response to Steve Burke

Hey that's great, have fun sticking the updates on 🙂

10.6.8 is probably a good OS to run iDVD on. Later OS's may do too many security checks or fail to run PowerPC apps, it can make the installers fail so it is probably good to get iLife installed & updated in 10.6.

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Answer 9

Steve Burke Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 15, 2016 12:18 PM in response to Drew Reece

I'm just working my way through all the updates now ... I forgot how many there were!

I also have to decide whether to update to Mountain Lion and leave it there or update all the way to Mavericks.

I stayed on ML for ages and have fond memories of it. In fact I only updated to Mavericks so I could move on to Yosemite. I've had lots of issues since then though so I'm not sure what to do at the moment.

I also didn't realise that I have access to files on each OS at the same time which is an added bonus. I thought I was going to have to do lots of USB transfers from one OS to the other.

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Answer 10

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 15, 2016 12:42 PM in response to Steve Burke

Do you have spare backup disks?

Clone 10.6 when it is up to date & iLife works. You can always revert to that if any upgrade breaks. Clone each new OS after testing too.

Carbon Copy Cloner will do that or you can use Disk Utility.

http://bombich.com

http://pondini.org/OSX/DU7.html (I can't see docs on Apple.com for the process).

The backup can be inside a disk image (handy but not bootable until you restore it) or it can occupy an entire partition & be bootable.

CCC makes it pretty easy. Disk images can be compressed so it can save some space.

As for the other mounted OS disk. Eventually you may want to unmount those partitions at startup - Time Machine & Spotlight can be tricky with them…

Time Machine backs up ALL internal partitions. Exclude the other one if you want to keep it out of the backups.

Spotlight may reindex the other OS disk, causing it to be rebuilt again when you start the other OS. It makes finding files tricky if you reboot & switch OS's a lot.

Personally I block the other OS partition from mounting on startup to avoid these, it can still be mounted manually via Disk Utility.

See how it works out when you are setup.

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Answer 11

MlchaelLAX

Level 4

2,293 points

Feb 16, 2016 1:12 PM in response to Steve Burke

Many users on this forum suggest a preference of Mt. Lion over Mavericks, so you might just stop there and see how it works for you. I have El Capitan, Yosemite, Lion and Snow Leopard on separate partitions on my 2011 Mac Mini and my day to day preference is still Lion. Some have suggested to me that Mt. Lion is preferable to Lion, but in my experience, I do not see any problems with Lion, so I have not purchased the Mt. Lion upgrade.

Since you have experience and strong opinions about iMovie HD (certainly more experience than I have!), could you please advise this user, as well:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7462631?answerId=29794428022#29794428022

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