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michaelsvx

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 9, 2012
21
0
Scranton, PA
Hey. I have a snow leopard disk that I sold on eBay. Will the buyer have any problems installing it? There is no serial number. It belonged to my wife and she no longer has use for it. Will there be any licensing issues? It’s 10.6.3 if that matters
 

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By the way...

Why was Apple always selling this outdated 10.6.3 for many years after 10.6.8 had been released? I never found an installer for my Late-2011 MBP what needed at least a special version of 10.6.7. I could only use it by installing it on an older Mac before, updating it to 10.6.8 and putting the SSD into my MBP.
 
Yes, that's how you get Snow Leopard installed on some Macs. Just a result of Apple not providing full installers for later versions of some OS X systems. Same for full install of Leopard, which was only released to version 10.5.6, Tiger to verston 10.4.6, and the earlier Panther to version 10.3.5
Apple finally fixed Lion to the latest version 10.7.5, which was related to Lion being the first version to support the Recovery/ Internet Recovery boot, where the latest version installer might always be available through your internet connection. Made a big difference in convenience for how the system could be installed. Simply not as convenient on systems before Lion.
There are some users who discovered how to modify the original 10.6.3 installer to add those parts of the install to make a later version (and overcome the need to have another, older Mac to assist in a reinstall of Snow Leopard.

Then, there is also the OTHER method to connect the two Macs with a Firewire cable, then boot your target MBPro to target boot mode, then boot your older Mac to your Snow Leopard installer, then choose the drive in your newer Mac as the destination to install Snow Leopard. After the install is complete, you can boot to the normal drive on the older Mac, then update the newer Mac to 10.6.8 with the normal combo updater to finish the install. And, you shouldn't need to move drives between the two Macs. All you need is a Firewire cable
 
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Yes, that's how you get Snow Leopard installed on some Macs. Just a result of Apple not providing full installers for later versions of some OS X systems. Same for full install of Leopard, which was only released to version 10.5.6, Tiger to verston 10.4.6, and the earlier Panther to version 10.3.5
Apple finally fixed Lion to the latest version 10.7.5, which was related to Lion being the first version to support the Recovery/ Internet Recovery boot, where the latest version installer might always be available through your internet connection. Made a big difference in convenience for how the system could be installed. Simply not as convenient on systems before Lion.
There are some users who discovered how to modify the original 10.6.3 installer to add those parts of the install to make a later version (and overcome the need to have another, older Mac to assist in a reinstall of Snow Leopard.

Then, there is also the OTHER method to connect the two Macs with a Firewire cable, then boot your target MBPro to target boot mode, then boot your older Mac to your Snow Leopard installer, then choose the drive in your newer Mac as the destination to install Snow Leopard. After the install is complete, you can boot to the normal drive on the older Mac, then update the newer Mac to 10.6.8 with the normal combo updater to finish the install. And, you shouldn't need to move drives between the two Macs. All you need is a Firewire cable

I later got a used 2011 iMac, that included a 10.6.7 install disk. But somehow it didn't work on my 17" Late-2011 MBP too, what I also bought used in 2014 without any disks.

Sorry I confused something, that MBP even came with 10.7.2 originally, but somehow supported 10.6.8 and only that one with all updates available installed.

It was the iMac that needed this special version of 10.6.7.
 
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Those installer DVDs were usually very model-specific, so, often would only install on that model Mac that they shipped with.
I am curious if the logic board in the Late 2011 might have been swapped out with an Early 2011 before you purchased it as used.
For example, the Early 2011 was 2.2 or 2.3 GHz, and the Late 2011 was 2.4 or 2.5 GHz.
 
Those installer DVDs were usually very model-specific, so, often would only install on that model Mac that they shipped with.
I am curious if the logic board in the Late 2011 might have been swapped out with an Early 2011 before you purchased it as used.
For example, the Early 2011 was 2.2 or 2.3 GHz, and the Late 2011 was 2.4 or 2.5 GHz.

It's not usable at the moment, because I removed RAM and SSD. It got this AMD-GPU damage in early 2023. My 15" from 2017 only lasted 5 years and it happened while I switched back for a while to use it as a daily driver.

But I found an old screenshot:

Screen Shot 2024-08-22 at 07.40.33.png
 
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