Fastest mini to dual-boot Lion & Snow Leopard?

I do software testing and currently have an iMac set up so I can boot either Snow Leopard or Lion. For space reasons, I'd like to get rid of the iMac and get a mini instead, but it looks like the current models won't boot Snow Leopard (true??).
So what's the fastest older model that would serve my purposes. Or should I just forget about it?
Thx

Find a mid-2011 model that was delivered with Snow Leopard. You might be able to find one in the Apple refurbished systems on the Apple store web site, or possibly via an online retailer that still has stock.

Similar Messages

Unable to set up a dual boot for Snow Leopard and Lion

I'm running an early 2011 MacBook Pro. I originally ran this machine with Snow leopard for quite a while. I've got 8 GB RAM and lots of free space on my hard drive. I upgraded to Lion and it works well. But I want to boot to Snow Leopard from an external drive to run some old Rosetta apps. However, I couldn't run the Snow Leopard installation disk on the Lion Machine. When I tried to boot to the installation disk, I would get a beeping sound during startup, three beeps in a row - repeating, and it would not boot. So I connected the external to another machine running Snow Leopard and I installed a new version of Snow Leopard on the external drive. But my Lion machine will not boot from that external. I am able to select the Snow Leopard drive in the Start Up Disk pane in the prefs. But when I restart, I just get the three beeps. I must be missing something here. Any help would be appreciated.

Not in cases when the computer successfully boots to one OS but produces three beeps when an attempt is made to boot it to another. If it really was a RAM problem that serious, the computer wouldn't get as far as checking the OS version, and it has no problems booting Lion. In the event of a minor RAM problem, it wouldn't produce three beeps like that at all.
(67955)

Dual Boot with Snow Leopard and Mavericks not possible?

I have a Early 2011 Macbook Pro with 2,3 GHz i7 Quad and two 512 GB SSDs (the secondary disk in an optical drive bay enclosure). This Macbook Pro can run Snow Leopard and Mavericks on the primary disk without problems. When I try to set up a dual boot system however, problems appear and it looks like it is not possible. When I start from Snow Leopard, I cannot select Mavericks as a start volume and vice versa. The error message says something like "Bless tool" cannot use this disk, i.e. unmount and boot from it. The problem remains when I exchange the disks (putting the primary disk in the drive enclosure and vice versa). When I put the secondary drive in an external case however, it is possible to boot from it - but strange things happen when the system starts: My computer clock is reset to 1/1/2001, WiFI passwords are not remembered for more than one session, disk permissions are reported as "repaired" but do apear as not repaired when I check them again - and other issues). I have verified both disks already and repaired permissions but that does not change the situation. So my experience is different from what is said in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/566781. It looks like the latest Mavericks cannot coexist with Snow Leopard on neiter a secondary internal drive nor on an external drive. This is strange since both disks and systems work flawless when run alone. Any suggestions to solve this problem?

When I check the Mavericks disk in the optical drive with disk utility after booting / running Snow Leopard on the primary disk I get som errors, see below ("disk utility Info"). So after all, I decided to erase the disk and install Mavericks new. But even erasing the disk is not possible when it is in the optical drive enclosure. I get this error message:
"Volume Erase failed with the error:
Could not unmount disk"
When I put this disk into an external case connected via USB however, it starts and runds MAvericks without any Problem. Same happens when I put thie Mavericks disk into the internal primary hard disk place.
"disk utility Info" when verinfying the secondary drive in the oprical bay:
Verifying volume “Samsung SSD Daten”
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Unused node is not erased (node = 40)
Checking catalog file.
Unused node is not erased (node = 30)
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Unused node is not erased (node = 8)
Checking volume bitmap.
Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks
Checking volume information.
The volume Samsung SSD Daten was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.
Verify and Repair volume “Samsung SSD Daten”
Error: Could not unmount disk

Dual boot machine- snow leopard and Lion

It appears I will need to set up one of my machines as dual boot, containing partitions for Snow Leopard and Lion. The reason is that Quicken is NOT compatible with Lion, and will apparently never be. Intuits "solutions" are to go to other, far less capable software, or not upgrade. Which, of course means, NEVER upgrade again.
So, I think my best solution is to set up a partition for snow leopard and one for Lion. How do I go about this? Size of partition. How to partition? Which boot disks do I use to do this?
Any help is much appreciated.

Ok, I just got done doing this yesterday so I can lay it out for you.
1: Copy all your user files to a regular external drive and disconnect.
2: Carbon Copy Cloner your 10.6.8 setup to another blank HFS+Journaled external drive and disconnect.
3: Hold c and boot off the 10.6 installer disk and erase your entire boot drive in Disk Utility (under the Utilities menu) format HFS+Journaled (default) of course.
4: Quit and install 10.6. Setup with the same user name as Snow. Run the 10.6.8 Combo Update. Then Software Update.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399
5: Use the MacAppStore to download Lion, BUT DO NOT INSTALL yet! Cancel it and click on the Installer and select "Show in Finder" follow these instructions to make boot DVD's and dmg images of Lion installer.
http://www.eggfreckles.net/tech/burning-a-lion-boot-disc/
6: Once you do that, then Install Lion. On a pristine 10.6.8 with no third party programs or other BS it should go perfectly. Check it out that it's stable just in case or else hold command r and boot into the Recovery Partition and redownload/install again.
7: Once that's done and Software Updated, run Bootcamp and create a Windows partition larger than your 10.6.8 clone naturally. The size is up to you to decide. Cancel the Bootcamp when the partition is created.
8: Hold Option and boot off the 10.6.8 clone with all your stuff and programs, use Disk Utility to change the "BOOTCAMP" partition to "Snow Leopard" and make it a HFS+ Journaled partition from the MSDOS format (not the whole drive now or you'll lose Lion and the Recovery Partition) If this doesn't work then use Disk Utility c booted from the 10.7 DVD or command r from the Lion Recovery Partition and use Disk Utility there.
9: Once that's done, Option boot off the 10.6.8 clone and Carbon Copy Clone 10.6.8 onto the Snow Leopard partition.
Walla, a dual boot system with all your stuff intact. Just hold option upon boot and/or use the Startup Disk in System Preferences to set a default.
I'm currently working on a quad boot system now. It's got Lion, Snow, Linux and will have Windows too. A lot more complicated than simply Snow and Lion.
Note: OS X Lion reguires a internet connection to install, even from a boot DVD.
Enjoy.

Dual Boot Lion-Snow?

I'm tired of Lion's unsupprted by just about everything, It's seems to run fine 90% of the time but not with a good protion of my apps. Problem is a have gotten a few new ones that are Lion only... soooo anyone tried dual boot with Lion and Snow? will there be issues? I'm going to give it a shot. Backing up Lion right now. What are other peoples view/?

I simply devided my 500GB OSX HDD into 2x 250GB (Diskutils>Partitioning) and first did a CLEAN INSTALL of OSX Lion, than migrated the whole of OSX SL into it!
At first bootup (option-key at startup) the Lion system was very slow due to indexing so I just left the system running over-night. The next day I used ONYX (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11582/onyx) to clean the system from its install and migration!
This is still a test-drive for me to sort out and try evrything.
So far so good, if performance/compatibility changes to much I'll just delete the whole partition MAC_OSX_LION and carry on with my life with MAC_OSX_SL!!!!
Cheers!

Creating a Dual Boot of Snow Leopard

Since having problems with permissions and my computer recognizing .aif files by certain programs and a whole host of other problems, I've decided to start over and reinstall Snow Leopard on another physical drive. I want to keep what I have because if this fails in some way, I want to be able to use my computer until I decided what to do. So, my question, how difficult is this to do? Can I just start with the original disks and reinstall on another drive? Will the OS ask me what drive I want to boot to everytime I start up? That would be fine with me, at least until I can get all problems resolved.

how difficult is this to do?
Not difficult at all.
Can I just start with the original disks and reinstall on another drive?
Yes.
Will the OS ask me what drive I want to boot to everytime I start up?
No. If you want to be able to choose on bootup, you need to hold down the Option key as you start the system. You'll be presented with a list of bootable volumes from which you can select. Otherwise the system will boot to whichever volume is selected in the Startup Disk system preference.
Regards.

Is it possible to have dual boot Tiger & Snow Leopard?

I currently use Tiger. I have one important (and expensive) piece of unsupported software that I don't need too frequently. Does anyone know if it's possible to have a 'Boot Camp' type setup with the option to boot in either OS? I don't want to be 2 versions out of date but I can't do without the unsupported software altogether.

My macbook only had an 80gb hd so after 2 years, I installed a 500 specifically for the coming of SL. With that in mind, I partitioned it in 2 beforehand.
Although I've never done it ( theres a lot about OSX I don't know about being that I jumped from 12 year old macs to OSX recently) but as the other person said, you can go ahead and make a partition.
Its just that when you put in the SL install disk, you'll need to go to utilities first and open disk utilities to create another partition. I don't know the exact instructions on that since I've just made partitions on a fresh drive.
Although I'm not sure if its necessary or not since you already have a system, what I did anyway was to boot from the SL install disk. You do that by inserting it and restarting while holding down the 'C' key. It'll take a while to boot from the disk.
As far as what do do with the install, it couldn't be simpler. Obviously you've already gone ahead and cloned your current system.
Once you have your second partition set up simply click install on the SL splash screen. After it does its thing it'll ask whether you want to migrate anything over from another volume or computer, etc.
It'll have some checkboxes for your 'old' home folder, applications and settings/network.
They all have a drop down menus for further refinement of what you want to migrate...except applications, I think...its all or nothing.
After you're all done, restart and it should boot from SL first. *Verify and repair permissions*
One thing I noticed was that my mac hd's didn't appear on the desktop. So I went and looked in the finder prefs and it has a checkbox to make them appear...which I did, and they showed up.
Thats about it.

Lion/snow leopard dual boot remove lion

Hi there guys,
I have recently (december 2011) purchased an early 2011 macbook pro (Inte Dual Core I5 2.3Ghz, 8Gb Ram, 500Gb hard disk, Graphics Intel Hd Graphics 3000 512Mb memory)
The system came initially with Snow Leopard installed which I substituted with Lion doing a fresh install (deleted hard disk) several times as I was not at all pleased with the installation as it seemed to slow the whole booting process considerably and caused several strange graphic issue such as strange lines when switching from one mission control window to another plus mail giving me a spinning ball for approx 30 seconds before actually starting properly and sometimes crashing, not being able to work with the desktop after booting for at least another 30/40 seconds.
I therefore decided to partition the internal hard drive creating an 80 gb partition in which i installed in a a dual boot manner Snow Leopard.
Now I am very pleased with the fresh Snow leopard install and its performance and i would like to get rid of the primary partition with lion installed.
Can I just delete the partition via the disk utility without incurring into any problems or.....
Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Happy winter to all...
Mirco

First, BACKUP!
Remove by:
Open Disk Utility.
Erase the Lion partition to MS-DOS (FAT).
Remove the extra partition by opening Boot Camp Assistant, then restore your drive to a single volume.

If I upgrade my Mac mini to Lion, can I still boot from Snow Leopard on another drive/partition?

If I upgrade my Mac mini to Lion, can I still boot from Snow Leopard if it is on another partition/drive?

Yes

[SOS]Which mac mini device can install dual boot(Lion and Mt Lion)?

Salutations!
Due to my assignment, I need to get mac mini device which support dual boot.
Which mac mini device model/firmware can we install dual boot(Lion and Mt Lion) on it?
I got late 2012 one, but it looks like it does not support.
Please help me.
Thank you so much,
TriQuang

Hi Niel,
Thank you for your fast reply. So if I buy mac mini MC815 model, which comes with preinstalled Lion I can run dual boot(Lion and Mt Lion)?
I have one more question: Can I install Mac OS 10.6 on that mini device? If it's not supported which mac mini model can I get to support Snow Leopard and Lion and Mt Lion?
Thanks and best regards,
TriQuang

Why can't brand new MacBookPro9,1 (OEM Mountain-Lion) boot from Snow Leopard on external drive, or internal partition?

Why can't brand new MacBookPro9,1 (OEM Mountain-Lion) boot from Snow Leopard on external drive, or internal partition?
Is this because of hardware changes? Or firmware changes? Or is it just and Apple Inc. administrative fiat?

@Steve Holton: Sorry Steve, but you're wrong about that one . I'm using 10.8 (purchased and downloaded) on the internal HD of this MBP8,3 (2.2 GHz, 17"), and I am also able to boot into 10.7.4 and 10.6.8 from external FW800 partitions.
However, I DO have problems with my MBP9,1. It came with 10.7.4 installed and ran fine. Then I purchased and installed 10.8. It ran fine but could no longer boot from 10.7.4 on an external partition. I then reinstalled 10.7.4 on the internal HD and discovered that it is still unable to boot (even 10.7.4) from an external FW800 partition.
One of Apple's Senior Support Advisors has done some remote troubleshooting but the case is still open and unresolved. An earlier Apple Support case suggested that when, I installed the downloaded copy of 10.8, there had been a "firmware update" (behind the scenes) that is now causing the problems with booting from my external partition(s). This apparently is "a bug": it is not what is supposed to happen.
So - I believe - "the problem" really has nothing to do with hardware capability. It is strictly about Apple's strategy for "managing its future customer base". If you don't like it - use something else - I am seriously considering Ubuntu as an alternative.
If there's a hidden caveat in all this it's probably "Read Appple's Licence Agreement VERY Carefully".

My iMac will not boot through Snow Leopard but will boot through Windows OS

My 2010 iMac will not boot in Snow Leopard, only Windows. Have tried reinstalling Snow leopard a few times and works only for a couple of minutes before freezing and doesnt reboot. Windows works perfect. Snow leopard just doesnt want to boot up past the Apple Logo. It was working fine one day and the next day it froze up and was able to reboot back into Snow Leopard but kept freezing. Now it doesnt load at all into Mac OS.
Brian

Possible scenarios:
1: The 10.6.3 SL retail disk is bad, it happens.
2: Your not using the 10.6.3 SL retail disk but one from another machine which doesn't have the drivers for that machine.
3: Your optical drive is funky or some other hardware issues.
4: Your trying to install 10.6 onto a PowerPC based Mac, no can do.
5: Your not using a wired keyboard for boot key commands, have some other hardware conflicts.
Possible solutions.
1: Copy the SL 10.6.3 disk using Disk Utility to another DVD, the error checking may resolve the original disk's issue.
http://www.brokenhomeboy.co.uk/pierow/blog/2011/10/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-l eopard-install-disc/
2: Make a SL bootable USB
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
3: Call Apple for a new 10.6.3 disk (and make copies for backup before Apple discontinues selling it)
If your upgrading to 10.6 to get to 10.6.8 to upgrade to 10.7, be warned of this:
1: Your 10.5 software will not work in 10.7, no more Rosetta or PPC based code.
2: Your hardware will not qualify if it's a 32 bit Intel Core Duo, also you may experience slowdowns in performance over 10.6 (10.6 is the fastest OS X version for Intel Macs) in older Intel hardware (I suggest Early 2011 Mac's and later only for Lion)
3: Mountain Lion 10.8 is reportingly coming out this summer and will not run on a lot of older Intel based Mac's because of heftier graphics requirements.
4: 10.6 has the widest range of current avaialble software and drivers for third party hardware.
My advice, stick with 10.6.8 and stay there, buy a new Mountain Lion machine after this summer. Skip Lion completely.

Can you dual boot lion with an older verion of Mac OS?

Can you dual boot Lion Os with and Older version of Mac Os (Snow Leopard?) So one can rum Power PC apps until they are upgraded?

You can dual boot if your machine originally came with an older OS version. No Mac can boot from an older version than the one it came with - notable exceptions are if the machine was built right around the time of the new OS release; in that case, it would depend on the machine and OS builds - it may or may not be possible.
So the important question here is: did yours come with Lion preinstalled? The answer is most likely: No. Or Snow Leopard? The answer would be: Yes.

I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard.

Good Morning,
I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard. I shut it off took out the battery, reinstalled the battery. Then I put in the Snow Leopard CD and booted up to disk utility and The Snow Leopard partion would not show up?? I do see the microsoft partion.
I also rebooted holding down the shift key and still no Snow Leopard
Could you please tell me what I can do, what keys do I press on restart any advice to get Snow leopard back.
thank you.

Have you restarted holding down the Opt key? That procedure should give you a gray screen with all of the partitions that exist. Then select the SL partition for boot. Also go to System Preferences and Startup Disk, unlock the lock and select the SL partition as the default boot partition, then relock.

Mac Pro will not boot with Snow Leopard - need help!

I have had a lot of issues with Snow Leopard since I upgraded from 10.5.8. Most of my problems started after installing Office 2007. I finally wiped the hard drive and reinstalled everything. No problems until last week. Start up was taking longer and had to reboot a couple of times because of grey screen. So I would just put computer to sleep. Yesterday the computer was frozen on screen saver with scrambled rows of pixels on screen two and the main monitor had a frozen image.
I initially pulled all peripherals out and pulled the power plug for 5 minutes. I have left the peripherals out and pulled the second monitor as well. I tried pulling the power plug during a few more starts but nothing gets me to a complete start up screen.
I have tried resetting PRAM and VRAM and tried a safe boot. I tried booting from Snow Leopard and my Leopard disk stayed on either a blue or gray screen with spinning beach ball (on gray screen).
Put original install disk in and booted from using D to check the hardware. Good news is that the hardware test was OK. I did the extended test.
All different kind of start up problems.
- Some start with start up sound goes to Apple logo to blue screen to grey screen with beachball
- Some start ups with no initial sound then Apple logo to blue screen to grey screen with no cursor or beachball
- Some start ups with no sound to gray screen to blue screen to grey screen.
I have no problem wiping the HD1 again but I can't even get the OS disk to be recognized with holding the C key during start up. This last time it went to a blue screen (holding the C key) and a cursor.
I don't know what else to do - Please help!!!

There are lists (MacIntouch and MacFixit) of hardware / software support issues with 10.6. Accelerateyourmac is another place to watch.
There were some really long threads back in Sept about printer driver support.
The 7300 firmware was more about Windows support; those cards are failing and dropping like flies (how DO they know 3 yrs has expired anyway?) and they don't support SL features like OpenCL etc so I'd invest in ATI 4870, best graphic card and works in all models Mac Pro.
Lots and lots of bootable clones for backup. Never need to wipe and install again.

Fastest mini to dual-boot Lion & Snow Leopard?

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