Upgrade from Mac OS X 10.6.8 to Snow Leopard

Question

Ok, it's true - I haven't upgraded my laptop in a LOOONG time. I have Mac OS x 10.6.8 and I was told I needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard 10.6.3. But whenever I try it, my laptop just turns off and restarts, I get the gray screen with the apple but that's it. It just sits there, it won't restart all the way. Then I have to do a safe restart and the Snow Leopard still isn't installed...
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

10.6.3 is not an update of 10.6.8. 10.6.8 is the last of the Snow Leopard updates. Now you have messed up your old system, so you are going to have to erase the drive in order to re-install Snow Leopard properly.
If your computer came with a version of Snow Leopard pre-installed, then install that from the original software restore discs that came with the computer. Otherwise, use the Snow Leopard DVD you have if your computer originally came with Leopard or Tiger installed on it:
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer.  Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the  "C" key.  Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.)  Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.  Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X.  You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.