Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Install Snow Leopard on Lion Macbook Pro - Dual boot

K

koldplay

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 25, 2011
10
0
Hi,

I just purchased a new Macbook Pro from Amazon as I thought they would ship it with snow leopard but it came with Lion. The reason I got a macbook was to run Avid Pro Tools which only runs on snow leopard at the moment.

Anyway my question is can I install snow leopard and have a dual boot of either operating systems? Now that I have Lion I don't want to get rid of it entirely so I think dual boot might be a good option.

Is this possible and easy?
Thanks
 
Thanks Tiki35 for the quick reply. That's exactly the info i needed.
 
I have partitioned my hard drive into 2. One for Lion that the system came with and the other with the hopes of installing Snow Leopard.

However I am having a problem. I have the 10.6.3 install disk and when I restart the computer and hold C (or option) to boot from the cd it just boots to the white screen with the apple logo on it and just hangs there. The laptop also makes 3 beeping noises in a row and continues to do this until I reboot the laptop.

Any ideas how I can install snow leopard onto the second partition?

Thanks.
 
10.6.3 doesn't support the MacBook Pro. The current version shipped with 10.6.6 (I think, either that or 10.6.7).

You'll need to source 10.6 system discs for your kind of machine.

Or, alternatively if you have another Mac. Boot the MBP into target disc mode and install 10.6.3 onto it from the other machine. Then install the 10.6.8 combo update onto it immediately afterwards.
 
Hi Koldplay,

Have you managed to do this yet?

I've got exactly the same issue - new MBP yesterday and found the three chimes with the Snow Leopard install disc (I just bought) hence my frustration.

I'm guessing it's fine?
 
Hi Midiwife,

Unfortunately not. I can't find a 10.6.6 or 10.6.7 disc to purchase anywhere online. :( This website seems to show which versions will install on laptop http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1159

If anyone knows where I can buy one please let me know.
 
Well I went to my local Applestore and it turns out they had the original install disks (10.6.7) for my model - they had a few thanks to some returns they'd had. So they were able to clean install 10.6.7 for me and get rid of the Lion restore partition too.

I'm sticking with 10.6.7 for now.

If you just need 10.6.8 then they should be able to help you in any Applestore as they have 10.6.8 images on their servers.

Good luck.
 
Hi Midiwife,

Thanks for the good info. I will take it to the apple store and do the same. I'm glad you got it working. :)
 
ok so i got the os in there but the Fn keys and trackpad aren't working properly.

Only F3 and F12 are working the rest give me an error sound when pressed.

The backlit keyboard works but the trackpad won't do 2 finger scrolling which is a pain.

I've read many other threads with similar problems going back as far as 2009 but no actual solution.

I'm expecting a call from an apple genius this afternoon so if I get a fix I'm going to post it here so others can benefit.

It's very annoying when all I want to do is get on and install software....
 
MrJolly said:
Is it enabled in the Trackpad features in the System Preferences?
Click to expand...

Hi MrJolly,

Oddly on the new MBP (as opposed to the trackpad system pref on 10.5.8 on my old macbook) the trackpad system pref in 10.6.7 shows nothing as it says 'no bluetooth trackpad found'. It doesn't give me any option to configure the inbuilt trackpad.

Is this a feature of SL per se? If so where do I config the inbuilt trackpad :confused:

I'm wondering now if there's a conflict between my new MBP keyboard hardware and SL.
 
Install Snow Leopard on Lion Macbook Pro - Dual boot

I am going to create a dual boot partition to run Snow Leopard on my Lion Macbook Pro. I only need to support a few legacy apps that require rosetta stone to operate. Any suggestions as to how large a partition to make? Snow Leopard is 6-7 GB, the apps maybe 2-3 GB. Do you think 50 GB would be too small?
 
chuckt2 said:
I am going to create a dual boot partition to run Snow Leopard on my Lion Macbook Pro. I only need to support a few legacy apps that require rosetta stone to operate. Any suggestions as to how large a partition to make? Snow Leopard is 6-7 GB, the apps maybe 2-3 GB. Do you think 50 GB would be too small?
Click to expand...

well obviously 50 is 40GB more than enough for what you need now, how can anyone assume if you will need more than 40GB down the road

40GB is alot of space for apps, i dont see an issue unless you start saving movies on that partition
 
Thanks for the reply. You are right, I probably should cut it down to maybe 25 GB. I have 750 GB on the drive, and probably went a bit overboard with my estimate. The allocated space would be to store my old Freehand files on the laptop.
 
chuckt2 said:
Thanks for the reply. You are right, I probably should cut it down to maybe 25 GB. I have 750 GB on the drive, and probably went a bit overboard with my estimate. The allocated space would be to store my old Freehand files on the laptop.
Click to expand...

ya its tought to know exactly, i made a 50GB partition for Windows bootcamp i have 37GB free on it and currently have nothing more i would add so if my remaining space comes close to full i can always delete the 50GB partition start over and make it smaller the next time
 
I'm in the same situation. I purchased a new MBP last week that runs lion and have legacy apps. Does anyone know how to install and run snow leopard with VMWare 4 so that I wouldn't have to reboot? I don't have a SL server dvd btw.
 
If you live near an apple store they will do it fir you. They did mine in 20 minutes and dudnt even want to use my sl disks.




koldplay said:
Hi,

I just purchased a new Macbook Pro from Amazon as I thought they would ship it with snow leopard but it came with Lion. The reason I got a macbook was to run Avid Pro Tools which only runs on snow leopard at the moment.

Anyway my question is can I install snow leopard and have a dual boot of either operating systems? Now that I have Lion I don't want to get rid of it entirely so I think dual boot might be a good option.

Is this possible and easy?
Thanks
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back