Idiots guide to cloning OS Snow Leopard

I'm contemplating doing my first every OS upgrade to Mountain Lion, but am nervous given a fairly large number of complaints. In trying to figure out how I would do this safely, cloning seems to be what I'm reading in these forums. But none seem to offer a clear, step-by-step process for those of us "idiots" who are not computer saavy.
Can someone either explain in detail how to clone, where to clone to, and if you hate the new Mountain Lion, how to get your full Snow Leopard that was cloned back and your system restored to it's former state? Of course, hopefully I'll love Mountain Lion and this will be mute. But I need clear instructions, or a link to someone who has truly spelled it out in detail (which I'm not quite finding).
Thanks!!

LQGuy wrote:
if the drive is formatted for Mac use, do I just plug it in and follow your steps?
Yes, do the same steps, even if a few instructions overlap and the drive is already formatted.
You need to be able to boot from this drive later, so it has to be correctly formatted. We are making sure no mistakes occur.
Mac's can read and write other formats and CCC can clone to it, however later it won't be bootable which is essential for the reverse clone proceedure later or using the external drive to run older PPC based software you have.
Most commonly used backup methods
Also since CCC copies the Recovery Partition in 10.8, paying for the license for that is essential as you can use that in 10.8 also to clone the Recovery which is neeed to download OS X on older machines with no Internet Recovery.
Yes one can make a 10.7/10.8 Recovery bootable USB, but that ties up a USB thumb drive and they are flaky anyway, also one has to use the Recovery USB FIRST to install that, then use SD to reverse clone the Macintosh HD partition, a two step process.
Where CCC will clone everything (but the Bootcamp partition) in one shot and there is WinClone for Bootcamp if you need it.
SuperDuper is only free for basic clones and won't do the Recovery or Bootcamp, the schedualing and backup feature will cost a license.
Since CCC has it all included in the price, you can chose to get the license now so you can clone the Recovery to other drives too.
It's up to you what and how you want to go about it.

Similar Messages

Unable to change to GUID partition scheme so Snow Leopard can be installed

Upgrading from OS 10.5.8 to Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on Macbook 4.1 with Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM. Instructions state "Macintosh HD" can't be used because it does not use the GUID partition Table Scheme. Use Disk Utility to change the partition scheme. Select the disk, use the Partition Tab, select the Volume Scheme, and then select Options.
Problem: The Options button is grayed out. The Partition Map Scheme is Apple Partition Map.
Note: Macbook purchased in 2008, but the hard drive was replaced in April 2011. Hard drive Information:
Name :
TOSHIBA MK1655GSXF Media
Type :
Disk
Partition Map Scheme :
Apple Partition Map
Disk Identifier :
disk0
Media Name :
TOSHIBA MK1655GSXF Media
Media Type :
Generic
Connection Bus :
Serial ATA 2
How do I change the partition scheme to GUID?

This requires that you repartition the entire drive as follows:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X 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. At this point you can quit DU and return to the installer and install Snow Leopard.
If you have data you wish to save then you need to backup before doing the above.

Cloning Snow Leopard from old iMac onto New iMac with Mountain Lion.

Hi all.
My old late 2006 intel iMac (2.1Ghz, 24" white) packed in a few weeks back (most likely GPU fail, but that's another topic!).
I've picked up a good deal on a second hand machine (funds wouldn't stretch to brand new model, but iMac definitely required):
2.7Ghz, 2011 i5, 1TB, 4gb RAM (will increase that) running mountain lion.
Ran a few tests on the old machine and the Hard Drive looked absolutely fine (was new just over 18 months ago) and could be accessed via another machine.
That was running Snow Leopard (upgrade from original OSX back in 2006) and easily ran FCP and Logic Pro post upgrade to SL.
What I would like to do really is clone my old hard drive (and I have a time machine back up on an external drive) onto this new machine. However, I'm not quite sure whether I'd lose Mountain Lion (if my old s/w such as Logic Pro 7 and FCP suite will run ok on ML I'd like to keep it as I quite like it.
Not having any discs with this iMac (Mountain Lion not requiring them), would I be able to re install Mountain Lion if I'd cloned a Snow Leopard drive onto it?
Apologies if this is an obvious question!! If I could still run FCP and Logic successfully on Mavericks, I might even upgrade to that also (not sure yet!).
Given the price of the thunderbird cables I'll be using a FW800-FW400 (cost 4x as less) to transfer. I'll probably use 'super duper' to clone.
Am I along the righ lines folks?
Many thanks.
somapop.

I only mentioned partitioning because you indicated that you wanted both Snow Leopard and Mavericks capability on the newly acquired iMac. Of course, you cannot have both flavors of OS X on the same hard drive unless it is partitioned to keep them separate.
Once you have Snow Leopard in one partition and Mavericks in the other, "dual-booting" is simply the process of determining which flavor or OS X will be operating by using the Startup Manager in System Preferences before you reboot, or holding down the OPTION key while you do reboot.
The disadvantage to this approach is that you cannot have both Snow Leopard and Mavericks running concurrently. To have that capability, you must install Snow Leopard Server into a virtualization program such as Parallels running in Mavericks and then they can run concurrently:
[click on image to enlarge]
More information on this approach here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439

Can I use snow leopard on an external drive

I have a mid-2010 13" MacBook 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, running Mountain Lion 10.8.3. I recently upgraded the internal hard drive from 250 GB to 500 GB and the new internal drive is working just fine.
I put the smaller hard drive in an external case, reformated it, and installed Snow Leopard 10.6. I've tried booting from the Snow Leopard drive, but something is preventing me from doing so. Mountain Lion won't relinquish control of the system.
Am I trying to do the impossible, or is there a way to boot from an external Snow Leopard drive when you are running ML on your internal drive? I would like to be able to do this so I can use some legacy applications that ML doesn't support.
Thanks -
Steven

When I erased and formatted the external drive (using Disk Utility) I made sure that the partition scheme was GUID.
I installed Snow Leopard on the drive while the drive was connected (via USB) to my iMac, which is also running Snow Leopard. Booting from the extrnal drive on the iMac seems to be working OK. However, I use my MacBook at home and at work, and I'd like to be able to use several legacy applications there.
I've tried booting by going to System Preferences > Startup Disk AND by holding the option key down during startup. In both cases things seem to be going along smoothly, then I get a black dialogue box that tells me (in several languages) to power down the computer, then restart it.
I haven't tried using Startup Manager. I do that right now.
Thanks.

How to remove Snow Leopard (or any OSX system) from a volume

Hi,
when I installed Lion I cloned my Snow Leopard system on another volume, in case I would encounter problems. Since then this second but unused system resides on that volume, beside other files.
How can I remove Snow Leopard without erasing all of the files. Does deleting the OSX folder Users, Library, System, Applications and so on do the trick? Are there any invisible folders ? Is there an app, that can do it?
Thanks in advance!
Philipp

Click on the spotlight logo in the top right, search disk utilitys, select the 10.6 partition then erase it

Yosemite on internal HD and boot Snow Leopard from external HD clone

Hey Everyone,
I recently cloned my Snow Leopard 10.6.8 internal HD to an external FW800 HD which I can boot off. I have backup of everything, both Time Machine and straight backups.
I am thinking of upgrading to Yosemite and am wondering will I still be able to boot into Snow Leopard from the Clone?
I had heard somewhere that Yosemite makes some changes to the logic board which makes it troublesome but I am not up to scratch on this stuff.
My System is an iMac 2011, identifier 12,1 with 2.5GHz i5 and 4Gb Ram(soon to be upgraded to 16Gb)
Many thanks in advance
J

Hello. I have a similar question. I recently purchased a new iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013, 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3) running OS X 10.10.2 Yosemite.
My issue: I have an external drive that I partitioned into two partitions, one is for all my music, pictures and videos. The other partition drive is Snow Leopard 10.6.3.
On my old iMAc (still set up and using it) which is a 2007 machine and running Mt. Lion, I was able to select which drive to start from, between Snow Leopard and Mt. Lion.
This allowed me to keep playing Sid Meier's Civilization III (the last version where you can build a palace).
Anyway, on the new iMac, when I choose the Snow Leopard disk as startup, and it reboots, I get a gray screen with the apple on it, and nothing happens.
Is there something else I need to do? Any idea why this does not work as easily as it did on the old machine?
Thanks.

Partition HD ? Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion

Hi all,
I have a 2009 MacBook Pro - was running OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard - partitioned HD and installed Mountain Lion on the second partition. Is there a way to delete the Mountain Lion partition and "clone" or move my Snow Leopard OS to the second partition and keep it as OSX 10.6 whilst upgrading the first partition to OS 10.8 Mountain Lion? I hope this makes sense. Thank you in advance for any help.

Installing Snow Leopard into Parallels 7 (or 8):
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439
Result:
[click on image to enlarge]
I do not believe that "cloning" of Snow Leopard is available. Only a full initial installation following these instructions. You could then reinstall your needed applications.
I strongly recommend that you NEVER keep data in a virtualized environment. Use the Home Folder or AFP File Sharing to access your data files, modify them and then store them back in the real environment.

Idiots guide to clean install upgrade to Snow leopard to get lion

Hi- am a total novice and have had my Imac 9,1 (2.93 Ghz Duo core processor with 4GB RAM) for a couple of years and now I am on MAC OS 10.5.8 Leopard and really want to get ready for Lion when it comes. My Imac has an external hard drive (250GB) and a time machine, airport for itunes for music streaming, some Microsoft office suite. I bought the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 yesterday and want to clean install without losing all my docs and settings for all iphones/ipods etc. Anyone got an idea where I can find an idiot proof guide to doing this? I guess I will need to do this all again once Lion is available
Help much appreciated...

first of all, make a backup of your boot drive by cloning it to an external HD using e.g. Carbon Copy Cloner.
then simply pop in the install DVD and click on continue. the SL installer will upgrade OS X and leave everything untouched (unless it's incompatible) - it's that simple.
in case something does go wrong, you have your clone.

Cloned HD running Snow Leopard won't boot in new MBP running Lion., cloned HD running Snow Leopard won't boot in new MBP running Lion.

Hi, I've seen a lot of discussion on this topic but nothing specific to my situation. I have two macs, a personal mac (macbook running Snow Leopard vers. 10.6) and a newer work macbook pro (late 2011 running Lion vers. 10.7.5). I want to use some of the applications at work (that is on the Macbook Pro) that are on my home macbook with Snow Leopard. I cloned the entire HD of my Macbook onto an external drive. The clone seems to have worked as I can use it as a boot disk for the macbook (from which it was cloned). However, if I try to boot the MacBook Pro running Lion, with this same clone on the external drive it won't work. I get a bit of text in the background and an overlay in dark grey saying (in several languages) restart the Mac by holding down the start key etc. I don't know if this has to do with the kernel panic problem or the Lion restore disk business. I don't see the point in trying to do an internal partition of the MacBook Pro hard drive and then add the cloned Snow Leopard, if I can't get the thing to boot externally as it is.
Does anyone have any fixes for what really should be a simple proceedure but is not?

Make sure the mac you are cloning from has the combo 10.6.8 update applied to it. The late 2011 models need at least 10.6.7 and better with 10.6.8. So if your older mac is running anything lower than 10.6.7 it will not boot on the 2011 model.

"GUID partition table scheme" Can't install snow leopard on my mbp.

I have a mbp that is partitioned as half mac, half XP. I put in the snow leopard CD and came up with an error that said I could not istall snow leopard because my partition did not fit the "GUID partition table scheme". I followed the menues to the partition section of the disk utility. From there, I don't know what to do. I can't click on the "options" button to change to the GUILD thing. Do I need to repartition my entire mbp? Will this erase my other partition? And will it delete all my data? Any suggestions on what to do???

GUID partition table (GPT) or map is a set of instructions at the very begining of a storage drive to tell the hardware what partitions and formats are where on the drive.
A Intel Mac now requires a GPT to boot OS X as it uses EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) which is a software firmware in a hidden EFI partition on the boot drive designed originally for copy protection by Intel. EFI loads into memory before OS X does, which can be seen if you have verbose mode activated upon boot time.
Setting up the boot drive with a GUID Partiton table WILL require backing up of all data off the machine and a complete erasure of ALL partitions on the drive, which includes ALL data, programs, operating systems and files not backed up off the machine previously.
Since a partition map is basically road directions, when it's destroyed so does go the partitions.
Also since you will be fresh installing 10.6, your free iLife won't tag along,, however you can erase/install 10.5 first then upgrade to 10.6 (no BootCamp) and that shoudl work.
Unfortunatly Mac's only now support Windows 7 in Bootcamp, however Windows 7 Pro (and above) will run XP programs natively or via free virtual machine XP downloaded from Microsoft, however since it's really not native, 3D games etc likely won't run very well.
If your not familiar or willing to take a chance, then I suggest you have someone else upgrade that machine.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents

What's the best way to use a cloned Snow Leopard drive with an iBook?

My aging and ailing MacBook Pro is going in for Apple Care.
I've made a clone of its hard drive and would like to keep working this week using an iBook G4. Alas, an external drive with Snow Leopard will not boot from an iBook. I did format the drive as an Apple Partition Map, so I can see it from the iBook and work with its files--but it will not start up from it.
I forsee screw-ups as I work with some programs and files on the iBook and others off the hard drive. Eudora, e.g., requires its In Box and Out Boxes to reside on the boot drive; many of my favorite programs take their settings from the start up computer, not the external drive. That means there will be all sorts of settings-- e.g., Word, Excel's, iKey's --that will need setting on the iBook or copying over to it.
Alternatively, I could downgrade the external drive to Leopard or even Tiger so I can boot from it and work with the files that way. I think that will require having to reformat the external drive--which means no direct cloning of the MBP drive to it! It also would preclude an easy 1-step restore (I'd have to clone it back to the MBP and then upgrade to SL).
Unsure which way makes the most sense-- or if there's another way I haven't thought of. I do have additional hard drives to play with (e.g., I made another SL clone of the entire MBP drive).
Any ideas, suggestions welcome!

AstroMacMan wrote:
Appreciate that extra tidbit, although that's not exactly true, is it? I mean, I had a cloned Leopard MBP and a cloned Tiger hard drive that do boot from the iBook!
If we could distinguish and separate the hardware drivers, download them from Apple etc., then it could be said we can use a clone on another model of Mac provided: A, B and C are met.
But since Apple has changed from OS 9 to OS X, PowerPC 32 bit to 64 bit, PowerPC to to Intel 32 bit, Intel 32 bit to 64 bit, locks the drivers to certain install disk versions and changes hardware around constantly, including changing the OS and making it not run on earlier versions of hardware, sideways stuff like A4/A5 processors, causing such a cluster mess of confusion and obscuration that it's better to say NOT than trying to find the tiny possibilities that it can happen.
If it does happen, lucky you, likely won't happen for any duration worth relying upon.

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.

Fonts and Mac OS 10.6.5 Snow Leopard - any guide available?

FONTS: I am trying to find an Apple pdf guide or information on how to work with Fonts, where they are stored etc. For example - in HD/Library/Fonts I have 185 items - of which 184 are fonts; and 1 is a Microsoft fonts folder, in which there are 131 items - all fonts - some which are duplicates (exact??) of the other 184 fonts in the fonts folder.
Then there are NO fonts in /scschulte(user)/Library/Fonts but 4 files that seem to contain information about fonts.
There are protected fonts in the system folder/Library/Protected fonts;
There are disabled fonts folders and font collection folders...
even fonts in iMovie!
How to manage this, reduce the number without causing problems; how to know when to use / keep a Microsoft font vs another etc. etc....?!
Thanks for any info here-- and is this similar (or exactly the same) in SL as in Leopard?? (I have the Missing Manual for Leopard, but not Snow Leopard).
Best regards,
Steve Schulte
Sunday 28 November 2010

Thanks very very much! I bought the eBook (pdf) and 2 others as well on other subjects within 2 minutes of getting your reply last week. Sorry to be late in replying - SUPER!!
Have a great December!!
Steve

Has need for GUID partition crept in even for Snow Leopard

I bought this MBP 5,2 with Mountain Lion installed, but damaged probably by inept erasure or possibly wonky internal HDD
I never wanted 10.8 as I have a lot of important Rosetta/32 bit stuff. I was briefed to totally erase HDD and re-install, which after some difficulty I did using a Snow Leopard disk, & it ran fine for a week or so, when HDD totally failed. I carried on using the MBP while waiting for a new HDD booting from a Super-duper back up external HDD (made on a 2008 15" MBP), an arrangement that also worked well with our other Unibody 15" MBP whereby my wife ran her Queendom from the internal HDD, while I ran mine from the external
I 'restored' the new HDD from this same back-up, but could no longer use either HDD as a start-up disk. So I used original Install disk to try to install 10.6 (which previously hadn't worked at all). This time it stalled with instruction for a GUID partition, which I made in Disk Utility from the DVD. I was then able to complete the clean install which it followed up with instructions to import my data. However it would no longer allow use of the external HDD as a start-up disk.
So the final stage was to do a new Super-duper back up of the external HDD disk. All a little hairy with my last 15 years work at risk.
Can someone explain why the need for the GUID partition has come in (and when)? Is it just so one can install 10.8 later; when I first got the machine a partition seemed to be holding restore data? (but was insisting I sign up and pay up for my own lion)

Niel wrote:
On an Intel Mac, Mac OS X will only install onto a drive partitioned as GUID; this is necessary for setting up Boot Camp and running firmware updates, but not to boot ths OS.
(82429)
So refusing to install may have a different reason from refusing as a start-up? And an external HD acceptable as a start-up with one internal HDD arrangement may not be acceptable with another?
Are HDDs marketed as 'for apple' just pre-partitioned accordingly, but otherwise no different?
If one erases the device as opposed to just a volume by mistake does that mean the partition has to be re-introduced?

Need help with reformatting to GUID partition so I can install Snow Leopard

I'm trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard, but since I replaced my hard drive last year, it was automatically formatted to Apple Partition Map, I'm not sure of the proper way to fix this.
I have Time Machine running with an external 500gb drive, the same size as my upgraded internal drive. What procedures should I use to safely back up ALL of the information currently on my computer, reformat the main drive, then restore all of my current information to the new style partition? I have 5-6000 photos, as well as 1500-2000 mp3 files I hate to lose. Should I back these up separately to a DVD or something first?
Any help, step by step, would be helpful, as I'm not very experienced with such matters.
Thanks......

ludwigvan66 wrote:
What procedures should I use to safely back up ALL of the information currently on my computer, reformat the main drive, then restore all of my current information to the new style partition?
The brute-force approach would be to buy an external disk drive and use use Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com/) or SuperDuper! (http://www.shirt-pocket.com/) to create a bootable "clone" of your disk. Then verify that you can boot from the "clone", reformat your internal drive, then use the same software as above to copy your files back to the internal drive.

Idiots guide to cloning OS Snow Leopard

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