Snow Leopard UTD disk DOES require Mac OS X

[HLdan]

Just got my UTD DVD today and I just installed a new hard drive on my white Macbook. I shoved the UTD disc in it and it refused to allow me to install it without a copy of Mac OS X preinstalled. No worries, my UTD DVD is for my new Macbook Pro anyway but I just though people asking this question would want to know. If you buy a new Macbook and buy your own hard drive to install in it you will have to install Leopard on it first, then use the UTD disc to do a reformat and install.

 

[glavoie84]

It confirms my post in another thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/8394248/

I just didn't want to reformat/wipe my hard drive to try. The update process was enough for me.

 

[fuzzielitlpanda]

so you loaded the cd, held down the option button, powered on the laptop, and nothing happened?

 

[maclook]

i just installed snow leopard with my UTD disc but im getting a new hard drive in a couple days and wonder if i should
a. restore my latest backup (leopard) and then install snow leopard
b. make a new backup (snow leopard) and restore that but i am unsure if it'll require both the leopard and snow leopard dvds to do so

 

[drlunanerd]

Just got my UTD DVD today and I just installed a new hard drive on my white Macbook. I shoved the UTD disc in it and it refused to allow me to install it without a copy of Mac OS X preinstalled. No worries, my UTD DVD is for my new Macbook Pro anyway but I just though people asking this question would want to know. If you buy a new Macbook and buy your own hard drive to install in it you will have to install Leopard on it first, then use the UTD disc to do a reformat and install.

Thank you. At long last someone with a clue posts the answer!

 

[mkrishnan]

i just installed snow leopard with my UTD disc but im getting a new hard drive in a couple days and wonder if i should
a. restore my latest backup (leopard) and then install snow leopard
b. make a new backup (snow leopard) and restore that but i am unsure if it'll require both the leopard and snow leopard dvds to do so

So you're replacing the HD and want ultimately everything that's on it to be on the new drive right? Super Duper is SL compatible... isn't it still the easiest way to do this? You shouldn't need the SL disk at all, since it's already on the drive, nor should you have to make a new backup aside from cloning the drive -- the typical process would be something like...

- Put the new drive in an external enclosure
- Clone onto it with SD
- Swap it into the Mac

(Or same but with an internal bay if you have a Mac Pro).

 

[abecker]

I actually had a very different experience. I received my UTD disk today.

I erased my entire HD. Rebooted.

I started the install and it went without a hitch.

 

[xxSpudxx]

I actually had a very different experience. I received my UTD disk today.

I erased my entire HD. Rebooted.

I started the install and it went without a hitch.

i believe this is different than what the OP stated.

using the SL to wipe your drive, then install, still has this disk checking your OS before installing.

The verification occurred as soon as you did your wipe process.

 

[amdrocks]

i believe this is different than what the OP stated.

using the SL to wipe your drive, then install, still has this disk checking your OS before installing.

The verification occurred as soon as you did your wipe process.

I think what abecker is trying to say is that:
boot into SL disc with a HD that has OSX in it
Use disk utility to erase and format the partition with OSX in it
REBOOT the machine!!!
Then boot into SL disc and start installation process

This is interesting, because once the HD is erased and get rebooted into SL disc it should not detect any OSX in the HD, and thus should reject the continuation of the installation process.

 

[Bill Gates]

I think what abecker is trying to say is that:
boot into SL disc with a HD that has OSX in it
Use disk utility to erase and format the partition with OSX in it
REBOOT the machine!!!
Then boot into SL disc and start installation process

This is interesting, because once the HD is erased and get rebooted into SL disc it should not detect any OSX in the HD, and thus should reject the continuation of the installation process.

Could it be that perhaps it writes something to the EFI partition, or in the GPT? When the disk is erased in disk utility, typically all that's being done is that everything is deleted except for the first partition on the disk, the EFI partition.

 

[g725s]

so you loaded the cd, held down the option button, powered on the laptop, and nothing happened?

I also wonder if the OP did this. OP?

 

[HLdan]

I also wonder if the OP did this. OP?

I'm here. Okay, I noticed not everyone is getting the gist of this. Of course on the UTD disk, you can do a full erase and install of SL, provided Leopard is already preinstalled on your hard disk.

This is where it won't work. Shove in a brand new hard drive that has not been formatted. Then put in the UTD disk. As soon as it gets to the install screen a message will appear stating (not verbatim) "Mac OS X 10.6 cannot be installed on this volume, Mac OS X 10.5 must be installed before this installation will continue". This is exactly what happened to me today because I just installed a new 120GB Western Digital Scorpio drive on my white Macbook and I couldn't use the UTD disk without installing Leopard first. It wouldn't even allow me to go to Disk Utility to format the drive.

The biggest issue is if someone wants to upgrade their hard drive you basically have to start over completely and put Leopard back on your computer first then, install Snow Leopard.
IMO, knowing this, I would recommend anyone that didn't order their UTD disk yet to use the money and buy the $29 DVD which allows you to do a full install from an brand new empty drive.

 

[ozziegn]

I can also confirm this. I booted from my SL disk and I used the Disk Utility to delete my current partition and then I created a new one.

I then installed SL from the SL disk and it went flawlessly. this sure beats having to install Leopard first followed by another OS install like SL.

 

[abecker]

i believe this is different than what the OP stated.

using the SL to wipe your drive, then install, still has this disk checking your OS before installing.

The verification occurred as soon as you did your wipe process.

I'd like to clarify the process I used (just incase people were wondering).

1) I booted up with my UTD disk in
2) I erased my entire HD using Disk Utility (I had a boot camp partition I wanted to get rid of anyway)
3) I turned the machine OFF
4) I turned the machine ON
5) I installed following the standard menu

Note: I used the UTD disk on the mac that it was intended (2009 iMac: Imac9,1). I think some people are trying to use the disks on Macs that aren't what the UTD was ordered for.

So I could only imagine it uses something like one of the following verification systems:
1) Sees if your Mac matches a list of "new" macs (ones that came out within X months of SL being released)
2) Sees if your Mac matches a specific hardware version; this would require each UTD disk to be system locked though (My UTD would only install on a iMac9,1)
3) It checks for the exisitence of the GPT/EFI partition on the system (which would identify either Tiger or leopard was installed, or someone was really good with hexedit/diskutil)
4) When I erased my drive, it put some piece of information on my EFI or new partition that stated I had leopard or erased with snow leopard installer after previous verification.

It could be any combination (or a completely different one for that matter) of these checks, but either way, it does a clean install like I wanted the disk to do.

 

[drlunanerd]

The OP is correct.

The Snow Leopard Up-To-Date DVD *will not* install on a blank drive.

However, if you have an external drive, or any other partition with an installation of Leopard OR Snow Leopard on it mounted when the the Up-To-Date installer loads, the installation checker will see it and then allow the install to proceed.

A useful workaround if you don't happen to have your Leopard DVD handy but do have a cloned drive or partition, and of course much quicker than having to install two OSes

 

[abecker]

The OP is correct.

The Snow Leopard Up-To-Date DVD *will not* install on a blank drive.

However, if you have an external drive, or any other partition with an installation of Leopard OR Snow Leopard on it mounted when the the Up-To-Date installer loads, the installation checker will see it and then allow the install to proceed.

A useful workaround if you don't happen to have your Leopard DVD handy but do have a cloned drive or partition, and of course much quicker than having to install two OSes

I still wonder why it lets me erase my entire drive, perform a restart, and then do an install without an issue.

The part I would think that would throw it off is the restart between erasing and installing.