How do I reset my hard drive software to Snow Leopard?

When I bought my 2009 MacBook, it was Snow Leopard, but it seems to lag now that it is on Lion. How do I reset my software?

I actualy just got mine changed at Apple.
Before you get it replaced or serviced, try doing a SMC RESET or NVRAM RESET. If that doesn't work, then take it to Apple.
Sometimes cleaning the area works but you have to take the battery out which is a pain.
So I decided to take to Apple and they charged me $79 for a new trackpad assembly. Total I spent for trackpad and labor was $104.00. If they're not busy, you can wait for it if they have the trackpad assembly in stock.
Good luck

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I have a iMac 6,1 that I want to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard version 10.6.3 . I don't know how to reformat

I have a iMac 6,1 that I need to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard version 10.6.3 . How do I reformat ?

Boot the ssystem from the OS DVD. Once it is booted run Disk Utiltiy. Select OS Extrended (Journled)
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3910?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

How to install (using usb flash drive) os x snow leopard on 10.5?

i have a version 10.5 (leopard), but i would like to install snow leopard (10.6). i tried using bootable usb flash drive using the "utility drive". However, it did not quite work as i expected. Does anyone know how to use bootable usb flash drive to install snow leopard on leopard?

How to Install OS X Updates Successfully
A. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions:
Boot from your current Leopard installer DVD. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then 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, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) 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.
B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
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.
C. Important: Please read before installing:
If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is complete and you've restarted.
You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)
The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update. While the installation is in progress do not use the computer.
D. To upgrade:
Insert the USB flash drive.
Restart the computer.
Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "OPTION" key.
Release the key when the boot manager screen appears.
Select the icon of the USB flash drive and click on the arrow button below the icon.
When the installer finishes loading follow the onscreen instructions.

Can I reformat and partition a new internal hard drive with the Snow Leopard disk?

I'm planning on installing a new internal hard drive in my 15'' Macbook Pro. Can I format and partition the new drive with the Snow Leopard disk or is it just an upgrade from Leopard? Thanks much.

You should be able to do that.
If you want to change the sizes of existing partitions this may help:
Enlarging a partition

How do I keep programs such as Word when I wipe my hard drive to reinstall Snow Leopard?

I am having serious issues with Lion. Even after the update, I lose WiFi, my mailbox crashes, Word crashes without saving a backup, and it has just been a very distasteful experience. I talked with Apple, and they couldn't help me resolve issues beyond telling me to bring it in or reinstall. I am choosing to reinstall Snow Leopard. I am going to wipe my hard drive clean and start over. Could someone tell me how to keep programs such as Office '11 though? I am currently at school and I didn't bring my Office software with me to reinstall, so how could I save it? I can't really do a time capsule since I am running Lion and I want to reinstall Snow Leopard.

If you are going to wipe the disk then you will have to reinstall the software.
You can't have your cake and eat it also.
Allan

How to copy and replace new Mountain Lion hard drive with old Snow Leopard drive?

So far I have not found an answer to my question, so I am hoping that this is feasible.
A while ago I purchased a used 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard that did not have the installer disc. A week ago the hardware died on me, so I replaced it with a new 2012 Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion.
The problem is that I purchased a 1 TB aftermarket HD for my old Macbook Pro and want to replace the current smaller hard drive in my new computer with it. I've already run Time Machine and put all of my data in my new computer so I figured that it would be possible to simply copy that disk image back over to my old drive and replace it. However the computer showed that they weren't compatible. When I tried to put my old hard drive in my new computer there was not a bootable OSX available.
Since Mountain Lion already came on my new computer I do not have an installer that I can use.
Is there anyway I can copy the current Mountain Lion information from my new hard drive and basically have a fully functioning, bootable copy on my old hard drive that I can put back into my new computer?
Thank you.

Well, if you put the HDD from the old Mac into an external enclosure you can use a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to clone the Mountain Lion installation onto the 1TB drive. If you go this route, I would suggest you consider using CCC as it does have the option to clone the Repair Partition as well as the boot volume.
Another route you could take would be to put the 1TB drive into the new MBP, and then boot to the Internet Recover . From there you can re-partition the drive and install Mountain Lion clean on the 1TB drive. During the installation process, you will have the option to use the Migration Assistant to migrate your data & apps. You can use your Time Machine backup for that, or if you have the original drive in an enclosure, you can migrate directly from the external drive. I have used this latter method myself a few times.

Can I run Mavericks from an external hard drive while keeping Snow Leopard?

Hi there,
I have a Macbook 5.2 which runs ok with Snow Leopard but I was wondering if I should upgrade to Mavericks now. Because I'm not sure how the new operating system will run on my machine I thought I could install Mavericks on an external USB hard drive and boot from there to evaluate if it runs fine for me.
Not sure if this is possible as I understand that 10.6 and Lion/ML/Mavericks have different filesystems etc... Don't want to upgrade, realise that 10.9 is not running smoothly for me and having to downgrade to Snow Leopard again - which if I remember well what I read a while ago it is not a straightforward operation....
Any ideas?
Many thanks
Mike

Yes it's possible and quite easy. However, do not install on a thumb drive - I've tried this with a 16gb and it's slower than a bread wagon with biscuit wheels.
Now I'm running a lacie external 500gb drive (partitioned) and a firewire 800 cable on macbook pro with Mavericks. Now it's smokin fast, faster that running my base hard-drive on snow leopard, however the external drive with mavericks osx is still dependent on the guts and performance of the macbook itself.

Lost my external hard drive and now Snow Leopard can't find it

I was doing some maintenance with Onyx (repair permissions, clean caches) and something happened to my external hard drive that I use for Time Machine. Snow Leopard no longer recognizes that the drive exists. It is not listed as a drive in the Mac HD window and is not listed in the Time Machine preference window as a choice for use by Time Machine.
I have already tried the following: (1) unplugged the external drive and replugged it into the back of my iMac (2) restarted the iMac both with and without the external drive plugged in (3) shut down the iMac and restarted both ways (4) pulled the plug on the iMac and restarted. Nothing works and the drive remains unrecognized. In all the attempts, I can feel that the external drive is spinning and it is still warm to the touch. It appears to be working.
Can anyone help?

I am also having similar issues with my Mac Pro (OSX 10.6.3). I have been using a WD external HD for months now with my Time Machine, and I just today realized the drive is not showing anywhere on my Mac and the last backup was on 4/4/2010 (connected via firewire 400 port). Additionally, my old Maxtor drive I previously (not currently) used for Time Machine was also not shown anywhere. I then connected the Maxtor via a USB port instead of firewire, and it will now show in my Disk Utility but will not mount. I ran a "verify disk" on the Maxtor drive and no errors were found. The WD disk cannot be found even in Disk Utility. Getting nervous about my backups.

MBP hard drive beeps after Snow Leopard Upgrade, just like the unibody

After upgrading my MBP to Snow, it is now beeping from the hard drive every 10-15 seconds, just like the videos that were posted of unibody MBPs beeping in 10.5.8 (which Apple released a firmware update for).
Just wondering if anybody else is experiencing this?

sure. I'm using seagate 500gb hdd. But still better than 10.5 where I can not start the system at all.

I want to install Yosemite onto an external hard drive, and keep Snow Leopard installed on the internal hard drive. I want to be able to boot from either system, depending upon circumstance (at least until Yosemite is stable). Is this possible?

iMac, Model Identifier iMac12,1 with 121.5" screen, 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, 1 TB internal hard drive, running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 from internal drive.
I want to install Yosemite onto a 1 TB external hard drive (OWC) , and keep Snow Leopard installed on the internal hard drive. I want to be able to boot from either system, depending upon circumstance (at least until Yosemite is stable). Is this possible?

It is possible. I'll let you read some articles that cover the setup:
Starting from an external USB storage device (Intel-based Macs) - Apple Support
or
http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/22/boot-mac-external-drive/

Upgrading Macbook Air hard drive and upgrading Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion at same time

I have a 2011 Macbook Air 3,2 running Snow Leopard (10.6.8). My 128GB SSD hard drive is completely full, and I have ordered an upgrade from OWC which also comes with an optional external enclosure. I would like to do a clean install (to "upgrade") to Mountain Lion on the new drive. Can anyone confirm if the following sequence will work?
1. Purchase Mountain Lion on App Store and download to an SD card
2. Connect my new OWC SSD as an external drive
3. Do a clean install of Mountain Lion from the SD card to my new external SSD
4. Boot from the external SSD
5. Use Migration Assistant to move everything from my in-system old SSD to the new (currently external) SSD
6. Shut down
7. Physically swap the SSD drives
8. Boot from the newly-installed larger internal SSD
9. Done?
Is it that simple or am I missing some major step? In particular, are there any complications with step 3 above?
Thanks for your help!

Carl,
The SD card can be used as a boot drive, if you manage to restore the image to the drive.. I tried to use an SD card in the built-in card reader, and for whatever reason could not get Disk Utility to restore the InstallESD.dmg image to the SD card directly when done throught the Air's reader. I had to use an SD card that had a built-in USB tab, and use USB. I did not try using an external SD adapter to the USB port to see if that would work.
Remember, you don't open the package by double clicking the installer, you Right-click (or Control+click) the installer, and choose Show Package Contents from the resulting contextual menu. In the folder that appears, open Contents, then open Shared Support; you’ll see a disk-image file called InstallESD.dmg.
Launch Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities). Drag the InstallESD.dmg disk image into Disk Utility’s left-hand sidebar to the flash drive you want to restore the image to.
I would copy the downloaded installer to a safe location, so if you ever need it again.

I want to erase everything on the hard drive and have snow leopard which is the operating system now left

i just brought a laptop on ebay with snow leopard on it and alot of programs i dont want. i want to erase everthing and end up with the snow leopard amd i can buy ilife which i want.

Erase and Install Snow Leopard
1. 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is complete quit DU and complete the Snow Leopard installation.

Can't erase hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard (SuperDrive)..

Running OS X 10.6.8
2.13 GHz Intel 2
2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
I have the original "gray discs" with Snow Leopard on them, and a SuperDrive. I would like to completely wipe the computer, and start over with just Snow Leopard. When I tried to do this yesterday following this tutorial, the whole process sort of froze at Part One, Step Three.
For the lazy non-link-clickers, here's the instructions I followed:
1. Turn on the computer.
2. Insert the Mac OS X Install DVD into the optical drive.
3. Press and hold the "C" key while the computer starts up. The computer will start up using the Install media.
....And that's as far as I got. The machine turned on, the DVD whirled and clicked, and the screen glowed gray for about 10 seconds. Then, it went black, and the DVD stopped whirring. Then that cycle repeated. Over and over and over and over. For over 24 hours.
So, what is going on, here?

Well, Kappy, you were right: my 2009 MBA came with Leopard, so those Snow Leopard gray discs I was using did not come with my machine.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find the Leopard gray discs that must have come with the computer.
So, I found a retail copy. And then I:
1) Inserted the retail OS X 10.5 disc into the SuperDrive.
2) Double-clicked "Install Mac OS X.app" in the DVD contents pop-up
3) Clicked "Restart" when prompted by the installer.
....And that's as far as I got. Again, the machine turned off and then back on, the DVD whirled and clicked, and the screen glowed gray for about 10 seconds. Then, it went black again, and the DVD stopped whirring. Then that cycle repeated. Over and over and over and over... Again.
Sigh. What is the deal.

MacPro1.1 with 3 internal hard drives, 2 with snow leopard OS & 1 with Lion OS, I have some software that will only run on OS 10.4.11, and I would like to add a 4th drive and format it to 10.4.11, can this be done aon this platform?

Hello,
I would like to load the 4th bay in my mac with a 2TB HDD and format it with the old system 4.11 will I have any problems?

Since it's a MacPro1,1, it originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.4.7 and will run Mac OS X 10.4.11 when installed from its original disks(or the Mac OS X Server 10.4 Universal Binary) and updated.
(62476)

New hard drive, reload of Snow Leopard, now I can't access Time Machine

I had a similar question posted in the iMac section and no responses. Then I realized there's a section just for time capsule, so this is the more appropriate place to post.
My 2008 iMac (Intel) recently crashed and the factory installed HD was the culprit. Got a new HD and reloaded all my software. I'm having a problem connecting to my 1TB Time Machine. It performed a back up and now I can't see the drive. I've got the drive etherneted (same set up as before the crash). I see the drive in Finder, but it refuses to connect. I get the following error message (I click on the time machine and it tells me connection failed. I try the Connect As... button and get this message)
"Connection failed.
There was an erro connecting to the server [server name]. Check the server name or IP address, and try again.
If you are unable to resolve the problem contact your system administrator."
The time machine has more than just back ups, I was using it before as a network drive, but my iMac was the only one I was ever sucessful in connecting to the drive via ethernet.
Any help on troubleshooting would be greatly apprecated, since data from before the crash is on the drive I'd like to restore.

I have tried rebooting with the original OS CD, and holding down the "c" key. Didn't boot up using the CD. I tried rebooting and holding down Shift +c, and that didn't work either. Apple, you're bringin' me down.

How do I reset my hard drive software to Snow Leopard?

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