Need help getting OSX onto SSD

[iNewbie]

I just bought a Mercury SSD drive from macsales.com for my Macbook Pro Unibody. My plan is to use the SSD as the boot disk and replace the optical with the current HD.

Here's the problem. I can't get the laptop to boot from the original retail Snow Leopard disc 10.6.0. I CAN get it to boot from an iMac install disc that I have which is 10.6.4 - BUT it obviously won't install. It seems that 10.6.0 doesn't contain the needed drivers for the SSD somehow. Really not sure.

I was afraid of this from reading forum posts but OWC's pre-sales tech support said it wouldn't be a problem.... I'm still waiting to get back in touch with them now that I have the drive.

so my question is.. how can I get this installed on the SSD? I can't CLONE my current drive as it's much bigger then the SSD.

I have another mac I can work with as needed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[MartyF81]

Drivers shouldn't be an issue....

Have you tried holding "C" while you boot the MAC to force it to boot off the DVD drive?

You COULD clone it this way:

1. Wipe your old drive.
2. Install just snow Leopard on your old drive (so the image would be small)
3. Then clone it to your new SSD.

 

[iNewbie]

Solution...

Yes I tried holding "C". nothing.

I didn't want to clone or wipe the existing drive... just move that to the second hard drive...

I ended up putting the SSD drive into a Mac Pro (drive 3). I was able to install OSX on it from there. I assume since it was not the boot drive.

What a pain it was... but at least it's running fine now.

Thanks!

 

[iNewbie]

Drivers shouldn't be an issue....

Have you tried holding "C" while you boot the MAC to force it to boot off the DVD drive?

You COULD clone it this way:

1. Wipe your old drive.
2. Install just snow Leopard on your old drive (so the image would be small)
3. Then clone it to your new SSD.

I guess I should say that this was a great idea, and I'm certain would have also worked. I just wanted to avoid the backing up all that data as much as possible. If I'd not have other Macs this would have been the only thing that would have worked. Assuming I had a means to connect the SSD to my laptop externally. I have a toaster.. but that didn't seem to really work that well. the laptop wasn't seeeing it...

Thanks again!