How do I install snow leopard on an external drive so I can update imac to lion

Hi, I have only one software program for which I need to keep using snow leopard. I would like to make a second start up on an external drive, and also put this software there, and then update my Imac to Lion. As I am not computer savvy, I would really appreciate step by step directions. so far, I have installed Lion once, found out the problem, uninstalled it , reinstalled 10.6.8, and restored all from back up. Now I need to figure out how to have both OS"s . I only need to use this software about once a month. I have also heard of something that makes a second machine as a virtual machine on the imac, but I don't know anything about it. Thanks,

Simply clone your system drive to the external drive:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. 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 your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes. Upon completion proceed to the cloning.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Clone Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
To startup from the external clone restart the computer and at the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the arrow button below it.

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Problem installing Snow Leopard on an external drive

Having just treated myself to a shiny new iMac, I have had a change around of my supplementary drives. I wanted to create a bootable external drive for backups and emergencies. I have a 500GB internal drive leftover from my G5 Powermac, which I have put into a Macally caddy for SATA drives. I have formatted it in Disk Utility and it mounts successfully via the Firewire 800 cable. DU shows it as having the GUID Partition Table.
The problem came when I tried to install Snow Leopard. The installation starts correctly and shows the drive as being selectable. Once the installation proceeds the progress bar gets about 25% of the way across when the iMac restarts and gets no further than the grey screen. The only way I can free it is to do a PRAM reset.
I have tried a similar procedure with my Powermac and Leopard and the same thing happens, so it must be something to do with the drive and caddy. Can anyone suggest what to do next?

There is no way for the installer or the Startup Disk system preference to know if the firmware of an external drive does or doesn't support booting a Mac. In theory they all should; in reality a few do not for various reasons, generally having to do with some proprietary feature like power management or something else that isn't completely specified in USB or FireWire standards.
There is no absolutely reliable technical specification for determining this. As a rule, interfaces based on the Oxford FW chips will boot a Mac; others may or may not, depending on the chip model & revision. Unfortunately, this info is often not published by manufacturers, especially for integrated devices not intended for drive replacements, which may use proprietary interface & power management circuitry.

Why can't I install Snow Leopard on an external drive?

In order to open applications which have been rendered useless when I installed Lion, I have been trying to install Snow Leopard from the Install DVD on an external drive. For some reason, it either hangs up and stalls during the installation or, when it does finish the process, I am unable to boot from it. It hangs up and the gear rotates forever. Is it not possible to do what I am attempting to do, whih is to get some use out of my now useless applications, or is there some way to accomplish this with which I am unfamiliar?

I see.
BTW have you considered abandoning Quicken? I was a long time (at least 10 years) Quicken user however it's clear Intuit does not consider the OS X market an important one or not important enough to come out with a true Quicken replacement that will run on the most contemporary version of OS X. Personally I (along with thousands of others) decided the time was right to begin looking at alternatives to Quicken. I chose iBank for it's similarities to Quicken, it's ability to import my Quicken data and it's support. I began using it several months ago now and have been very happy. IMHO it's a better solution than what you're attempting and staying with "dead" software is simply postponing the innevitable which will only become more difficult the longer you postpone it.

Is it possible to install Snow Leopard on an external hard disk?

I was wondering if it is possible to install Snow Leopard on an external drive that I use as a backup start up disk. Can I then boot up off of either disk? I would like to test Snow Leopard with my applications before I install it on my internal drive.
Thanks

You can install from your install disk and migrate from your internal during Setup Assistant.
If all is well you can then use SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner both free for cloning to clone the system on your external to your internal.
This is what I do when testing upgrades/updates.
-mj

How do I install snow leopard on a 2.1 ghz macbook with 10.5.8 Leopard installed? I have a 10.6.2 unstall disk. It says it can't install snow leopard on this computer.

How do I install Snow Leopard on my Macbook 2.1 ghz, with 10.5.8 Leopard installed?
I have the install disk for Snow Leopard 10.6.2, but when using it for installation, it
states that "Snow Leopard cannot be installed on this computer"!
I understand some features of iOS5 cannot be used unless my iMac and Macbook have
10.7 Lion installed. Correct?

It sounds like your Snow Leopard install disk is the disk that came with another model of Mac (grey lable with no pictures). If so, that's not legal and won't work. You need a retail (white label with the picture of a snow leopard) copy of the installer for each system that didn't come with Snow Leopard.
Regards.

How do I install Snow Leopard using another computer?

My 2009 MacBook meets all the criteria for the Snow Leopard upgrade, but my dvd drive is broken. Every time insert the dvd it is spit out (it is the same for audio cd's as well). I have tried repairing the drive and installing snow leopard using an external dvd drive (with no luck). I need a simple guide for using another computer to do the upgrade. My boyfriend has a newer MacBook Pro and I believe is operating on Lion. I want to use his computer to upgrade mine, is it possible eventhough we are on different operating systems?

How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode

I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that is running 10.7.5 and I am trying to use a 10.6.3 DVD to install Snow Leopard to an external hard drive.

I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that is running 10.7.5 and I am trying to use a 10.6.3 DVD to install Snow Leopard to an external hard drive. I've followed every possible instruction on every which website. The problem is when I boot to Install disc, I am unable to choose which hard drive I'd like to install the OS on. It says that it is unable to Install and automatically takes me to Restore and suggests that I restore to Time Machine backups. Any and all help is appreciated.

lovinlife5959,
have you tried booting from the grey Mac OS X Install DVD that originally came in the box with your MacBook Pro? See if you can install its version of Mac OS X (either 10.4.9, 10.4.10, or 10.5.0, depending upon when it shipped from the factory) onto your external hard drive. If that works, boot from your external hard drive, run Software Update on it, and then try updating your external drive to 10.6.3 via the white Snow Leopard DVD.

HT3777 I have a Window 7 HP laptop. I want to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive as the memory space on my laptop is very less. I have the original snow leopard disc and I think it's a retail version . Please guide me through the installation.

I have a Window 7 HP laptop. I want to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive as the memory space on my laptop is very less. I have the original snow leopard disc and I think it's a retail version . Please guide me through the installation in details. Can you also please let me know about this boot camp.

You cannot. From a legal standpoint, the license agreement for OS X mandates that you run OS X only on Apple hardware. HP is not (yet) owned by Apple.
From a technical standpoint, your HP laptop doesn't use EFI, but rather an early predecessor called a BIOS. Apple is the only vendor of consumer computer hardware that uses EFI; other vendors reserve EFI for use in servers.
Secondly, Apple's operating systems support a rather limited number of configurations of video hardware and mainboard chipsets directly since they need only support those systems that they manufacture. You cannot use Windows software or drivers on OS X, so prior to installation, you would need to write your own hardware drivers for your laptop, create an OS X drive image on a Mac, and then modify that image with your drivers before putting it in the HP.
It will be simpler (and legal), to simply purchase a used Mac. Apple's online store has refurbished MacBook Airs starting at $850 and Mac Minis for $700. If you go to e-bay or craigslist, you'll find used Macs for considerably less.

Can I install snow leopard on an external hard drive so I can run quicken 2006, and put snow leopard on my imac harddrive

Can I install snow leopard on an external hard drive in order to run my quicken 2006, and install lion on the hard drive of my imac?

You don't need to erase the drive and repartition from scratch. You may be able to add a second partition on the fly. The caveat here is that once you do that you cannot create a Windows partition using Boot Camp. Of course if you have no plans for Boot Camp then it isn't relevant.
To create a second partition on your existing startup volume:
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Open Disk Utility and select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.
2. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.
Now, you cannot add a new partition that exceeds the amount of contiguous free space at the end of the drive. Disk Utility will fail to add the partition if it cannot find sufficient contiguous free space. If that's the case then you will need to follow your state outline - backup, boot from clone, erase internal, repartition internal, restore backup to one of the partitions (or both in your case.)

How do I install Snow Leopard while keeping files, applications, and settings

I need to update my system, I realized that I need Snow Leopard (quiet late) before Maverick. My question is, how can I install it keeping files and all the data. I found this on Internet, does it work?
Install Snow Leopard while keeping files, applications, and settings
If you follow these steps, the installer will replace your operating system if one is already present, but will preserve your account information and personal files. You may have to reinstall some applications, however.
Insert the install disc (or the first install disc if you have more than one) into your disc drive. Restart your computer while holding down the c key. This causes your computer to start up from the install disc rather than your hard drive. When you see the gray Apple insignia, release c .
The Mac OS X installer should open automatically. Follow the on-screen prompts to read and accept the license agreement and begin the installation. When prompted to choose a destination disk, select your preferred location and click Install.
When the Mac OS X installation finishes with the disc, restart your computer. After the installation completes, a configuration program may begin automatically if you are installing for the first time. You will need to supply basic setup information for your computer.
Update your system software to ensure that you have the most recent operating system components. From the Apple menu, select Software Update... , and then follow the instructions on the screen. Often, you will have to restart your computer, and you may have to run Software Update multiple times before it can completely update your system.

That's why you need to back it up. You won't need to restore the backup immediately afterwards unless something goes wrong during the upgrade, but you'll need it later; the drive will eventually fail.
(105428)

How do I install Snow Leopard over 10.5.8

I have just recently acquired a MacBookPro from a friend of mine who's father has passed away. I am able to access the computer without a password but the admin is still set to his father and he doesn't know the password. I have the Snow Leopard OS and want to do a clean install like it came from the factory with no personalization. This is the first time I have owned a MacBookPro so I am unsure how to do a clean install of Snow Leopard over the exiting OS 10.5.8 and if I have to delete that OS first. How do I do that?

Insert a retail DVD, restart with the C key held down, use the Disk Utility to erase the internal drive, and install Snow Leopard.
While the retail DVD can be used to create a fully functional OS, it can’t perform a true factory restore; it won’t install any of the iLife applications.
(111513)

How Best To Install Snow Leopard For A Non-Techy?

What is the best route to go down to install Snow Leopard please? I received my copy on Saturday but I'm apprehensive at installing it!
When I installed Leopard I ended up with a lot of problems, some of which are still not resolved, such as the non-recognition of log-in passwords etc. I still have to provide a password when switching back and forth between users and in order to close down I have to log out all users individually!
As a keen Mac-user (but by no means a technical expert) I would like my Snow Leopard experience to be as painless as possible, so how best to install it please and at the same time eliminate my old Leopard problems outlined above?
Message was edited by: Julian Brown

Julian Brown wrote:
As a keen Mac-user (but by no means a technical expert) I would like my Snow Leopard experience to be as painless as possible, so how best to install it please and at the same time eliminate my old Leopard problems outlined above?
For the most painless upgrade possible, I suggest you just follow the instructions under the heading "Upgrading Mac OS X" in the Snow Leopard Installation Instructions document.
As a precaution, you may want to run Disk Utility's "Repair Disk" step first. You can also run the "Repair Permissions" step if you want but I doubt that is necessary.
Your 'old problems' aren't problems, AFAIK. You must always provide a password to change accounts & all accounts must be logged out to shut down or restart the computer. These steps insure the privacy of each user's account & make sure each user has a chance to save any open documents before the computer shuts down. IOW, they are desirable features, not problems!

How to re install snow leopard after bad lion installation

I installed Lion but it's a nightmare I want to re install snow leopard. How can I do this? I have time machine !
Thanks

Robert Farthing wrote:
Switch off your computer, hold down the option key (usually the key between the ctrl and the cmd keys).
Keeping a finger on the option key, press the start button.
Keep holding the option key as the computer re-boots.
Eventually you will be presented with some options on the screen, one of them will be to restore from Time Machine.
No, you missed a step. You'll see the Recovery HD as one of the options. From that, you can reinstall Lion or restore a Lion Time Machine backup.
But do not use that procedure to restore a Snow Leopard backup; instead, use the procedure in #14 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

How do I install Snow Leopard as a partition with Yosemite on a 2001 Mac Mini?

I have owned Mac's on and off since the 80's. I currently own (myself and my kids) a 2008 MBP, iPhone 4 and 4s, 2 old iPhone 3's, just purchased a 2011 Mac Mini and iPhone 6, and my work-from-home computer is a 4 month old MBP.
Several years ago, I upgraded the 2008 MBP to Mountain Lion. Then the one and only game that I have played since around 2001, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, wouldn't work on Mountain Lion so I successfully added a 50GB partition and reinstalled Snow Leopard and the game has worked great ever since.
Recently, I gave my son that 2008 MBP, so I purchased the Mac Mini (i5 dual, 8GB memory, 750 HDD) and immediately upgraded it to Yosemite. I proceeded to carve out a 50GB partition and have tried several times to install Snow Leopard to no avail.
After creating the 50GB partition, I rebooted, and held down the option key so I could then have the option install the Snow Leopard onto that 50GB partition - but it just keeps freezes up on me. I even went so far as to try to copy the 50GB off the 2008 MBP onto the Mac Mini and that (understandably) didn't work either.
While I know enough to cause trouble, I am completely flummoxed with this. I've run many searches and haven't been able to find a solution.
Can someone please walk me through the steps to make this work? When I do restart, I don't even see that 50GB drive like I do when I restart the 2008 MBP so I suspect something may be wrong from the get go. In Disk Utility, it shows the 2 partitions just fine, but not on reboot/restart with the option key held down.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Thanks very much for the quick reply. I figured it would something that simple. Like I said, I only know enough to cause trouble. LOL
Thanks again, Guess I need to find a new game to play. LOL

How do I install Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro currently running Lion?

A friend is having trouble running older apps in Lion on his new Macbook Pro and wants to revert to Snow Leopard. Any suggestions or cautionary tales appreciated. Thanks.

New MBPs require a version of Snow Leopard that you cannot purchase. If it did not come pre-installed on the computer then installing Snow Leopard is a bit of a chore.
First off he will need a computer that can boot from a retail Snow Leopard DVD (10.6.3.) Second off he will need a 16 GB USB flash drive or a free partition on a USB hard drive that is at least 16 GBs in size. The basic process is:
Using a computer that can boot from a retail Snow Leopard DVD you install 10.6.3 onto the spare drive. Download and install the 10.6.8 Combo update. Create a new partition on the MBP. Boot the MBP from the 10.6.8 USB drive then clone the system to the new partition on the MBP.
I will be glad to provide more detail if needed.

How do I install snow leopard on an external drive so I can update imac to lion

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