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Peterwdmd

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 17, 2007
16
0
Just to clear up this issue... it IS possible to do a clean install of Snow Leopard with the up-to-date disc.

I already had Leopard installed on the drive. Booted from the DVD by holding down option during startup. Got to the part where it asks you to select the drive for the installation. Before continuing on I used Disk Utility to erase the Mac HD. Then continued the installation.

Took 30 minutes. Running Leopard fine right now.
 
From what I understand, you booted from the disc with Leopard installed, which means the disc did its check before you erased the drive.
 
No, someone already tested this by cold booting a machine with a blank hard drive and then installing.

So I'm pretty sure they proved it works.
 
The upgrade is really a full installation disk. I was able to install it on a fresh HD.

Well now there's a thread with someone claiming the opposite.

We need screenshots of it NOT working since multiple people have indicated it has worked on bare new drives.
 
Aloha,

I did the same with my retail copy of Snowy - booted off the DVD, fired up Disk Utility, then erased my HDD to do a clean install. This was done on both my iMac and MacBook Pro. Of course, I had Leopard already installed, so the check for an existing Leopard install could've been done prior to Disk Utility access.
 
i tried it today on my old Tiger MacBook Pro and a message came up saying it requires Leopard installed, so yes, it does have a check. once you have Leopard or SL however, you can choose to use disk utility to erase the HD and install SL fresh. doubt it would work on a clean HD though.
 
Just to clear up this issue... it IS possible to do a clean install of Snow Leopard with the up-to-date disc.

I already had Leopard installed on the drive. Booted from the DVD by holding down option during startup. Got to the part where it asks you to select the drive for the installation. Before continuing on I used Disk Utility to erase the Mac HD. Then continued the installation.

Took 30 minutes. Running Leopard fine right now.

Pretty much what I figured, seeing as this has been the way to do a clean install with OS X since like 10.2.
 
Snow Leopard definitely doesn't require Leopard to be there.

Although according to the terms of the EULA if you install Snow Leopard on a blank drive without installing Leopard first you are actually not legally licensed. Despite owning Leopard.
 
Snow Leopard definitely doesn't require Leopard to be there.

Although according to the terms of the EULA if you install Snow Leopard on a blank drive without installing Leopard first you are actually not legally licensed. Despite owning Leopard.

You're talking about the retail disk but the UTD disk absolutely does require Leopard to be preinstalled before you can install SL. The retail disks are labeled "Install DVD" while UTD is labeled "Upgrade DVD"
 
Like I said, I already had Leopard installed on my laptop.

The upgrade disc may have done some sort of behind-the-scenes check to verify this before allowing me to proceed with the installation on the formatted hard drive.
 
Like I said, I already had Leopard installed on my laptop.

The upgrade disc may have done some sort of behind-the-scenes check to verify this before allowing me to proceed with the installation on the formatted hard drive.

Yes, the check is done right away before you get any options. So there is nothing odd about you being able to erase and install.

The real question is whether or not you could put in a new HD without any OS and install with the UTD disk, and I think the answer is no.
 
Do people actually use the search button?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/777053/


The $10 UTD disk lets you do a wipe then install if you have Leopard installed on their first.

If you buy a new hard drive the UTD disk will not let you install without Leopard installed first.

The $29 disk is a full retail disk.
 
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