My imac is currently running on Snow Leopard 10.6.3 How do I upgrade to install Mountain Lion?

My imac is currently running on Snow Leopard 10.6.3. How do I install Mountain Lion?

Update your 10.6.3 to 10.6.8 using the :
http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=answerlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsupport.apple .com%2Fkb%2FDL1399&answerid=16777216&src=support_site.downloads.search
Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1
Then make sure you meet the requirements for Mt Lion:
http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/
Now that being said, the 2GB RAM requirement will not leave you with a smoothly running system. Max out your RAM that your system can handle (more than 8 GB would be up to you) . Older Applications may no longer supported. No Power PC apps are supported past !0.6.8. Many other Apps will need to be updated or upgraded.

Similar Messages

I have installed the most recent version of Snow Leopard on my MAC, and I am trying to install Mountain Lion from the Apple Store. It will not install, because it says I do not have 2GB of memory, even though I have over 200GB available. Please help.

I have installed the most recent version of Snow Leopard on my MAC, and I am trying to install Mountain Lion from the Apple Store. It will not install, because it says I do not have 2GB of memory, even though I have over 200GB available. Please help.

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
One thing is the memory, and another thing is the hard disk space. You are telling me that you have 200 GB of free space on the hard disk, but the App Store is telling you that you have to install 2 GB of memory or more on your Mac if you want to upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion.
First of all, open  > About this Mac > More Info, and copy "Model Identifier" here, so we can know what Mac you have got and how much memory you can install.
We recommend to buy the memory in OWC or Crucial (Crucial is cheaper and offers the same compatibility warranty as OWC) because you won't probably have any problem with the memory you buy there

Running OS X Leopard 10.5.8, I want to upgrade to OS X Lion, do I have to first update to Snow Leopard?

I have an iMac running OS X Leopard 10.5.8, I want to upgrade to OS X Lion, do I have to first update to Snow Leopard? And is it worth upgrading to Lion or should I wait some time?
Thanks for your time!
-JX

Yes you must first update to Snow Leopard if you plan on installing Lion. Apple is very clear about that in the Lion's Tech Spec's that say:
General requirements
Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
2GB of memory
OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
7GB of available space
Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
I like Lion quite a bit and have been using it for several months now. I've found it pretty stable, of course I don't use all of it's features however I really like the additional swipe features however you need a Magic TrackPad to take full advantage of those. However other features like Launchpad I don't have any really appreciation for because I've used OS X for several years now. However if someone is considering their first Mac after using an iPhone, iPad or other IOS device they would appreciate Launchpad.

What are you doing with software (games) designed to run on Snow Leopard. Have you heard of anyone making a patch for LION?

What are you doing with software (games) designed to run on Snow Leopard when the Os is Lion?

It is up to the publishers of games to accommodate their software to Lion.
Blizzard, publisher of StarCraft, WarCraft, and Diablo, has posted a statement about that -
Blizzard Support
Although they were able to create patches to allow the use of their (OS 9) games in OS X up through Snow Leopard, apparently from their perspective it is not possible to patch those games for Lion.

I installed Snow Leopard on my white Macbook 4,1 and purchased the Mountain Lion to upgrade again. Now it says not compatible and won't load. Required specs on my laptop seemed fine but? Any ideas what to try?

I ordered Snow Leopard and received the disk from Apple. It loaded fine in my white Macbook 4 ,1 that has 4GB memory, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.1 GHZ processor and L2Cache 3mb. Decided to upgrade once more to Mountain Lion (skipped Lion) and purchased the download directly from Apple. This morning I downloaded and when it went to install a screen appeared stating my laptop wasn't compatible. From what I had researched before purchasing Mountain Lion it seemed this laptop was fine. Do I need to purchase LION before trying to install Mountain Lion? Otherwise what could be wrong? Any help appreciated. Thanks!

1. If desired, go to the online Apple Store and ask for a refund.
2. Click here and see the lists of new and dropped features.
(121128)

I have a mac book 10.6.8 that has been upgraded to Snow Leopard (latest version.) How can I upgrade to mountain lion with 1GB of memory? When I go to buy it, it says that it's not compatible with my Mac but my Mac has all of the qualifications.

If anyone has any idea I'd really appreciate it. I just bought the iphone 5 and recieved the new nano as a birthday gift and now I'm up a creek without a paddle b/c I can't plug them into my laptop without the new itunes that runs on Mountain Lion.
Please help, I'm not very tech savvy.

You don't need anything higher than OSX 10.6.8 to run iTunes 11. iTunes system requirements - http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
You can't upgrade without more RAM.
MacBook upgrade possibilities - https://discussions.apple.com/message/19577869 - "The Early 2006 model 1,1 Core Duo can only run a maximum of 10.6 Snow Leopard. The models Late 2006 Core 2 Duos 2,1 through Early 2008 4,1 can only run a maximum of 10.7 Lion. The Late 2008 model 5,1 Aluminum Unibody through the Mid 2010 White Unibody model 7,1 can run 10.8 Mountain Lion."
Kappy 08/2012 post on upgrading to Snow Leopard, then Lion or Mountain Lion - https://discussions.apple.com/message/19401628 - including how to get Snow Leopard and Lion since Apple removed them from the online store. (Update 11/2012: SL is now available online again http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard - USA http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard - UK)

Installing Leopard on an iMac G5 currently running Panther!

HI,
I heard a rumour that I might not be able to install Leopard on my iMac G5 currently running fine on 10.3.9 Panther, at least, not before I install Tiger. Is this true? I had hoped I could just buy Leopard and install that. Surely I don't have to track down a copy of Tiger and install that first?
Only reason particularly for upgrade is have bought some new iPods and they won't work with Panther :-(!!
Any advice would be gratefully recieved.
Ed.

MilkyJoe wrote:
HI,
I heard a rumour that I might not be able to install Leopard on my iMac G5 currently running fine on 10.3.9 Panther, at least, not before I install Tiger. Is this true? I had hoped I could just buy Leopard and install that. Surely I don't have to track down a copy of Tiger and install that first?
Only reason particularly for upgrade is have bought some new iPods and they won't work with Panther :-(!!
Any advice would be gratefully recieved.
Ed.
Just install Leopard directly. I suggest an Archive and Install and then migrate your stuff back. Many old apps and programs will not run with Leopard. Sherlock, to name one. Also be careful of your 3rd party apps. Some have been trouble.
Use SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to make a full bootable backup of Panther and then test it by booting into it. You then have the best of both worlds - a dual-boot system with Panther and Leopard.
If you partition your external drive for Panther in a small partition and leave the rest for TimeMachine backups, you are really set.
I have my external TM drive with Tiger in a small partition. It boots and once and a while I run it to keep it from getting lonely

I Have mac osx 10.5.8 and have tried to update to mac osx snow leopard 10.6.3, but I constantly get the install failed message. What could be the problem?

My imac is currently running mac os x 10.5.8. I've tried to install mac osx snow leopard 10.6.3, but have been unsuccesful because the disc fails to install.
What could be the problem?

noondaywitch wrote:
You should boot from the Installer DVD by holding down the C key during start up until the Apple logo and spinning cog wheel appears. Allow plenty of time for the installer to appear - it can take several minutes when booting from a disc.
I suggest not doing this unless the Apple recommended method (starting by double-clicking on the
Install Mac OS X icon while booted up normally) fails.
There are several reasons for this:
The Apple method performs a check of the DVD's integrity before starting up from it. This can't be done if you start up directly from the DVD.
The Apple method "phones home" using the current OS's network settings to check for updates to the incompatible items database included on the DVD & writes a lot of pre-install data (the 'Mac OS X Install Data' stuff) to the HD before restarting automatically from the DVD to finish the installation. This may not work as expected if you start up directly from the DVD.
The pre-install data on the HD speeds up the installation process (because running the OS from the HD to build the data is faster than doing that while running from a DVD).
The Apple method makes it possible to "gracefully" cancel the installation before the automatic restart occurs without leaving the existing OS on the HD in a corrupted, "half-installed" state unable to restart the Mac. This sometimes happens if the installation process hangs & one has to force-restart the Mac to recover. As long as this occurs during the "pre-install phase" before the restart, the existing OS should remain untouched & intact.
Also note that the Snow Leopard installer is quite a bit more sophisticated than the previous ones like for Leopard or Tiger. It automatically performs the equivalent of Disk Utility's Verify Disk step before beginning the installation & performs more checks during the installation process (including checking the pre-install data for errors). It is usually not necessary to remove the "Mac OS X Install Data" folder after a failed installation, which may just cause the process to take longer on subsequent attempts, but if nothing else helps it is certainly something worth trying.

How do I partition my MacBook Pro so I can keep Snow Leopard and also install Mountain Lion?

How do I partition my MacBook Pro so I can keep Snow Leopard and also install Mountain Lion?
I want to install the latest OS, but I already know that I will lose a lot of my software unless I can partition the hard drive and have two "bootable" drives.
How do I retain everything I have, partition the drive, then reloa the software I own according to which OS it will work under?

msmedia wrote:
I do not currently own OS X ML.
I am currently running OS X (10.6.8 Snow Leopard) on my MacBook Pro. It has a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. I want to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but many of my software titles will not operate with ML and I cannot afford to replace some of them (Adobe Creative Suite, for e.g.)
After I back-up my HD and then partition the HD, how do I use the back-up to reinstall what I want to the SL partition, and then place the rest on the ML partition.
I have not done what you want to do, so can only offer some general thoughts in support. Take value from the following where you can. No guarantees.
If it was me, I would use a disk clone utility (e.g. Carbon Copy Cloner) to image the existing Snow Leopard disk to an external drive. Then verify that the external drive would boot and run Snow Leopard normally.
I would then purchase and download the Mountain Lion upgrade installer, but not run it. Use Lion Diskmaker to make a bootable USB stick, and perform a clean install of Mountain Lion, replacing the Snow Leopard on your MBP. This way, you make absolutely certain that no third-party drivers or other SL cruft remains to make Mountain Lion unstable. Update to latest ML point release. Fix permissions. Let TimeMachine make a full backup of your ML installation to a different external drive. Then turn of Time Machine.
In Disk Utility, use the + sign at the bottom of the ML partition to add another GUID, HFS+ Journaled partition for Snow Leopard. Resize to taste. Name it differently from your ML partition. Exhale.
Now ideally, you would like to reverse the external clone and put it back into the new SL partition. Then fix permissions. And demonstrate that you can boot into individually stable OS X installations. This would save you alot of work. Resist copying your home directory into ML just yet.
If you cannot successfully achieve the preceding paragraph, you will be faced with a full SL and application reinstall.
The ~/Library contents for SL and ML are sufficiently different that you do not want to mix them. You may want to salvage Safari bookmarks.plist. And, ML created folders in the home directory may have different permissions or ACL settings than in SL. So, my rule of thumb would be to copy folders that you created in SL, and only the contents of matching named OS created folders such as Music, Pictures, Downloads, etc.
For each operating system, you probably want the Time Machine settings to exclude the opposite OS X partition. If you use the same host name in Sharing prefs, then you will mix SL and ML backups on the same Time Machine back up drive. If you use different host names, they will be distinct folders in the Time Machine backups.backupdb and allow discrete restores per host. You may also want to gag Spotlight from indexing the opposite OS X partition.

Hi I am trying to install snow leopard, Hi I am trying to install snow leopard onto my iMac g5 currently, Hi I am trying to install snow leopard onto my iMac g5 currently running 10.3.9. I open disk ,click install- nothing happens. Any ideas? Thanks Dan

Hi I am trying to install snow leopard onto my iMac g5 currently running 10.3.9. I open disk ,click install- nothing happens. Any ideas? Thanks Dan

Snow Leopard requires an Intel-based Mac, so as Niel indicated your iMac G5 cannot run it. The last version of Mac OS X your iMac G5 can run is Mac OS X 10.5.8.
Regards.

I want to install Mountain Lion on my 2008 iMac. My current OS is Snow Leopard 10.8.6. I've heard ML may be too much for this iMac. I would appreciate anyone's advice.

I want to install Mountain Lion on my 2008 iMac. My current OS is Snow Leopard 10.8.6 and there is 4GB RAM. I've heard ML may be too much for this iMac and may slow it down. Has anyone had any problems with this upgrade?

See > http://www.apple.com/osx/specs OS X Mountain Lion requires a Mid 2007 iMac or newer, and your iMac can run Mountain Lion without any problem. 4 GB of memory are enough for Mountain Lion, but if you are going to use heavier applications, maybe you will need more RAM
Before upgrading, you must make a Time Machine backup and/or a clone with Carbon Copy Cloner, and check that your applications are supported > http://www.roaringapps.com

My 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot even after erasing and re-installing Snow Leopard (via my MacBookPro), either from the HD or DVD drive. Can't get it to run Hardware Test. Disk Utility says disk OK - files are there. What can I do?

My 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot even after erasing and re-installing Snow Leopard. I erased and re-installed by putting the iMac in Target Disk mode and usin my MacBookPro as the host. But after numerous attempts I still can't get it to boot either from the HD or DVD drive. I just get the white screen after the wheel stops spinning. I can't get it to run Hardware Test - just get the white screen. If I use Disk Utility via my MBP it says the disk appears OK. All the Snow Leopad files appear to have been installed. What can I do?

Hi-NRG Bwoy wrote:
I erased and re-installed by putting the iMac in Target Disk mode and using my MacBookPro as the host.
Reet the SMC and the PRAM
 Cheat sheet to help diagnose and fix your Mac
Perhaps you installed the wrong version OS X onto the iMac, you can't use the disk from another Mac.
clean the disk.
If it's not working then use this method to create a bootable 10.6 USB from the iMac machine specific 10.6 disk or the 10.6.3 retail disk on your other Mac, use it to boot the iMac with.
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

Our imac runs osx snow leopard but it cant find the hard drive or it is corrupt, is it possible to reboot it with osx lion?

our imac recently displayed the white screen and flashing file icon with a question mark on it, it runs osx snow leopard but i dont have the installation disc, can i reboot it off the osx lion disc? or do i need to buy the snow leopard disc and reboot it off that first. thanks for your help in advance!

Yes you can. If the iMac meets the system requirements for Lion then you can boot it off the Lion disc (which is actually a USB drive, unless you download and burn it yourself).

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac that was previously running Snow Leopard. Bugt I found that some key applications no longer work, so I would like to go back to snow Leopard. I can't use time machine backups for this. what can I do?

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac. But In was dismayed to find that my Canon scanner software (Canoscan LIDE500F)no longer works. Nor do any of my MS offce applications. I tried to use time machine to reinstall Snow Leopard (my previous operating system), but unfortunately my time machine backups did not include system software. Also, the original system install disk that came with my iMac would not allow me to install Snow Leopard in place of Mountain Lion. I would appreciate it if somebody could tell me how to solve this problem.

The reason your Office doesn't work is because it is PowerPC code. If you will upgrade the 2004 Office to 2011 Office then that will work.
I don't understand how you managed to get your Time Machine backup to not backup the system.
Now if you still what to downgrade you will have to erase the disk and reinstall Snow Leopard. Most likely all of your application and then restore your data from Time Machine.
To me it sounds like it would be easier to upgrade your software and stay with Mountain Lion instead.
Allan

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.

My imac is currently running on Snow Leopard 10.6.3 How do I upgrade to install Mountain Lion?

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