Reinstalling Snow Leopard MacBook Air into Mavericks/Lion

Hi!
I have a MacBook Air from 2011 with Snow Leopard on it. I want to wipe my hardrive clean and install either Lion or Mavericks on it. The problem with the 2011 model with Snow Leopard is that you cannot reboot and reinstall it without a USB key, right? So, if I install either Lion or Mavericks on the computer before I reinstall it, will that give me an option to reinstall without an USB key, or is it a permanent condition for the Macbook Air from 2011 to be without an Internet recovery mode?
Thanks in advance!

Phidelphi wrote:
Hi!
I have a MacBook Air from 2011 with Snow Leopard on it. I want to wipe my hardrive clean and install either Lion or Mavericks on it. The problem with the 2011 model with Snow Leopard is that you cannot reboot and reinstall it without a USB key, right? So, if I install either Lion or Mavericks on the computer before I reinstall it, will that give me an option to reinstall without an USB key, or is it a permanent condition for the Macbook Air from 2011 to be without an Internet recovery mode?
Thanks in advance!
While not exactly answering your specific questions, my advice: Partition your hard drive for a new 2nd partition of about 80% of the remaining capacity. Install Lion or Mavericks into the new partition.
That way you have a Snow Leopard partition to work with by "dual-booting" (Startup Disk in System Preferences). If you discover that some of your software will not work in Lion/Mavericks, you have the Snow Leopard option to work with them.
Reinstalling Snow Leopard after a complete wipe/install Lion or Mavericks will be very difficult and time consuming.
BACK UP BEFORE DOING ANYTHING!

Similar Messages

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard and foolishly upgraded to Yosemite. Is it possible to go back in time with Time Machine and reinstall Snow Leopard. Then upgrade to Lion or Mavericks? Any other ideas on how I can exit Yosemite?

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard and foolishly upgraded to Yosemite. Now have numerous problems. Is it possible to go back in time with Time Machine and reinstall Snow Leopard? Then upgrade to Lion or Mavericks? Any other ideas on how I can exit Yosemite?

Once you get yourself back to Snow Leopard, if you still want to upgrade somewhat, I would suggest the following:
1. Get an external hard drive that you can use for experiments with new OS versions. You could partition it into 2 or 3 partitions. You could then clone your existing Snow Leopard system to one partition using Carbon Copy Cloner (well worth $40) or SuperDuper ($25).
2. Buy OS X Mountain Lion for $20, through the Apple online store (I don't think it's available through the App Store). Apple has decided to make it very difficult for anyone to get Mavericks unless they have already downloaded it.
You will receive two e-mails from Apple, one containing a PDF with a redemption code, and one with the password you will need to unlock the PDF. Using the code, you will download Mountain Lion from the App Store, where it will appear among your Purchased items.
After ML finishes downloading, its installer app will launch itself. When you see this launch screen, QUIT the install app immediately! Go to your applications folder, find the Install OS X Mountain Lion app, and copy it to a safe location outside of your Applications folder. Keeping one or more copies will allow you to reinstall without unnecessary aggravation if you later need or want to do that. At this point, you can re-launch the Installer in the Applications folder and let it run. You can install it on a clean partition on your external HD, or you can allow it to upgrade the Snow Leopard clone you created on your external drive, or you can do both. This should allow you to test how everything works for as long as you like.
3. If you left yourself a free partition on your test drive, try a clean install of Yosemite and set everything up from scratch (do not migrate anything). This will allow you to see whether your problems with it were related to something in your Snow Leopard system.

File sharing between MacBook OS X Snow Leopard, MacBook Air OS X Mountain Lion won't work?

I'm using two laptops - a MacBook with OS X Snow Leopard and a MacBook Air with OS X Mountain Lion. I have set File Sharing privileges on both machines. Neither is showing up as visible to the either through browsing network places or even by directly trying to connect to the computer name.local or the given IP address. We have a Belkin router but I've turned the Firewall off on it and that still didn't do the trick. Any ideas?

Have they ever worked together?

Upgrading Hardrive/ Re-installing Snow Leopard Macbook Air

I just bought a bigger hard drive for my macbook air. I already backed up with time machine. My plan was to install the new hard drive, install snow leopard, and then do a time machine restore. My problem is I own the snow leopard disk but the macbook air doesnt have a dvd drive. How do I re-install the OS without a DVD drive and does my plan make sense?
Thanks

If you want to install Snow Leopard on your Air, Remote Install OS X is designed to accomplish that:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2129
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/21219.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777
You need another computer with an optical drive, but it can even be Windows: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL112
After Snow Leopard is installed, it will present the option to migrate your account and settings from the TM backup.

How do I remotely access my Snow Leopard server from my Mountain Lion MacBook Air

Does anyone know of an idiot's guide to setting up a VPN to access my server? I'm running Snow Leopard server in the office and I'd like to be able to access the server, probably just from one computer (MacBook Air runnung Mountain Lion) from home.
I'm not sure if it complicates things or not, but the office is in an area with poor broadband and so the internet connection is via satellite broadband. The set up is a satellite modem into a Gigabit router and the server is connected to the router via an unmanaged switch.
As an aside, I'm considering changing this set up so that the modem plugs into a Time Capsule and the server will connect directly into the TC. The desktops will then run into the server via the unmanaged switch or wirelessly via TC - any thoughts on the best set up here? Are cables into a switch better/worse than using TC's wireless facility.
Is this something that I, as a reasonably competent computer operator but definitely not an IT expert, could do, or should I get someone in to set it up for me?
Thanks in advance
Jim

VPNs aren't particularly special or weird or secret or such. They're "just" a network connection. A sometimes very fussy network connection, but a network connection.
My preference is to use a firewall that includes an embedded VPN server. This for several reasons, as it avoids trying to forward the VPN through a device that's using NAT [1], and it means you can connect to multiple devices on the target LAN, and you can connect even if the OS X Server box is down.
Other folks will forward the VPN through NAT, and use the VPN server that's available in various versions of OS X Server.
Forwarding a VPN through NAT does work, but can also sometimes not work. NAT can cause some types of VPNs to get tossed off when (for instance) there's a second VPN connection arriving.
In various cases everything connects and works the first time, and in other cases it's trial-and-error.
With a VPN-capable firewall (which is a step above your average residential firewall), usually configuring the firewall as a L2TP server or the Cisco protocol, if you want to use the standard OS X or iOS clients. Or PPTP — which is easier to get working — but less secure. Once the firewall and the VPN server is set up — and that's where most of the "fun" is — then the set-up in Network Preferences is (usually) pretty simple.
There are thousands of OS X VPN set-up articles around, but the details all hinge on the particular VPN server, and whether you're going to try to push the VPN through (for instance) that Tome Capsule and its NAT. Until you sort out your VPN target and/or VPN client, and what sort of attacks you're securing against...
As for this case, satellite latency is large. The latency involved is the time it takes to the command or the text from your local Mac to the satellite ~35,786 kilometers up and then ~35,786 kilometers back down, and then the response back again. That's about a quarter second, each way, at the speed of light. Transferring big files is fine (once the connection is open and the transfer gets rolling), but anything interactive — such as a typical use of a VPN — is going to have a noticable lag.
Yes, it'll be easiest to get somebody to work through your requirements and expectations, and initially set this up for you. Or you can use this as an opportunity to read about and learn more about IP routing and networking and VPNs, too.
[1] VPNs seek to ensure that the network connection is secure, and from a known client IP source address to the IP address of the target VPN server. NAT explicitly obscures the network connections, and often has multiple client hosts located behind one IP address. Put another way, the VPN and NAT software implementations are working at cross-purposes.

I have installed mountain lion on my macbook pro ,but it made my mac very slow. Would someone please tell me how to uninstall this one and reinstall snow leopard?

Hello,
I have installed mountain lion on my macbook pro ,but it made my mac very slow. Would someone please tell me how to uninstall this one and reinstall snow leopard? I tried to do it by my original CDs but macbook pro didn't let me to do it.
Thanks

It would be easier to just fix whatever is making your machine slow.
I wrote a little diagnostic program to help show what might be causing these problems. Download EtreCheck from http://www.etresoft.com/download/EtreCheck.zip, run it, and paste the results here.
Disclaimer: Although EtreCheck is free, there are other links on my site that could give me some form of compensation, financial or otherwise.

My new macbook pro (Mountain Lion) will not log into my 1and1 server to connect to my e mail. My snow leopard macbook does not have this problem - Apple support say it is a 1and1 problem! do I have to wait for an update of Mountain Lion?

My new macbook pro (Mountain Lion 10.8.1) will not log into my 1and1 outgoing mail server. ( It will receive mail - but does not send)My old Snow Leopard macbook does not have the same problem ( server settings etc. are identical) . Apple Support say its a 1and1 problem , 1and1 say it is an operating System prob - I have tried changing port numbers.

My eyes just glazed over...Please in the future break down each of your issues with paragraphs separated by two carriage returns. It would be much easier when trying to address your issues.
Go to Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Mouse
And edit your mouse settings to do what you want it to do.
Secondly, this is not the place to vent. If you have a complaint, there is:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
or http://www.apple.com/contact/
We are just end users here helping other end users.
Third, from my understanding, it would appear you are concerned about the noise the hard drive makes when it falls asleep? Why not put your machine in screen saver mode instead? Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Energy Saver turn off all Energy Saver settings, or set them to run Never.
Fourth, if your machine was purchased just a few days ago, you may still be able to get an exchange from the store, quicker than you can get a repair done. You may want to look into that possibility.
Fifth, it does appear you found the Logic forum. I would persist in asking there how to solve your technical issue with Logic regarding the audio. It may be you don't have to do anything special to the hard drive. Remember audio can be transmitted by wire, avoiding ambient sounds.
Good luck!

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.

Reinstalling snow leopard on a machine that has mountain lion

Having trouble reinstalling Snow Leopard on a Macbook Pro (aluminum 17", 2008 or so) that is currently running Mountain Lion... advice?

Downgrade Lion/Mountain Lion to 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. Set the format type to Mac OS
      Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the
      partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on
      the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.

Reinstalling Snow Leopard over Lion?

Few days back i hve downloaded mac lion "Mac OS X 10.7 (11A511)" from a torrent site.
But now when i m trying to reinstall snow leopard from the installation CD which i got along with my macbook then intallation does not begins.
Following error caution appears while intallation "You can't use this version of the application Install Mac OS X with this version of Mac OS X."
Plz tell me how to reinstall snow leopard and plz tell me teps too as it will help me a lot.

Boot up from your Snow Leopard DVD. Launch Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Erase your hard drive. Then reinstall Snow Leopard. Restore your personal data from backups. Reinstall your apps from their original install discs, or from fresh downloads from trusted sources. No more torrent sites for you.

Can I delete maverick and reinstall snow leopard?

Can I delete os maverick on MacBook Pro and reinstall snow leopard?

Yes you can. But in doing so you will need to wipe out the complete drive so you should first manually backup your user files to an external drive. That is copy all your personal files over to an external drive and not with Time Machine.

How do you erase Lion and reinstall Snow Leopard

I want to remove Lion and reinstall Snow Leopard. I put the install disc in and clicked Install so that I could get to the disc utilities. Got a reading that this version of OS X cannot be used on this computer. I'm using a mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro. I don't have any backups made, but I am not worried about that...I just want to go back to using Snow Leopard. Lion has too many quirks I don't want to put up with. Any suggestions?

Downgrade Lion to 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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.

How can I uninstall Maverick and reinstall snow leopard? My mac hasn't been the same since I upgrading to maverick. Runs slow, crashes, can't cope with normal functions.... Help, please help

How can I uninstall Maverick and reinstall snow leopard?
My mac hasn't been the same since I upgrading to maverick. Runs slow, crashes, can't cope with normal functions....
I need to go back to leopard or buy a new MacBook Pro!
Help, please help

Revert to a Previous OS X
Revert to former OS from Mavericks
Revert to Snow Leopard

I have a Macbook Air with Mountain Lion..I upgraded to the latest version called Mavericks OX now it crashes a lot...when I use the shift key especially I now have version 10.9

I have a Macbook Air with Mountain Lion..I upgraded to the latest version called mavericks ox now it crashes a lot...when I use the shift and Caps keys especially. I now have version 10.9. how can I get mountain lion back and get rid of this update?

all of my software was current before i upgraded to maverick....i don't know why this is going on...any help?

Anyone else had trouble getting RID of Mt Lion? I was shocked to learn that I could NOT run some of my software on it and attempted (with online help) to reinstall SNow Leopard. My computer is now in the hospital! I should have been told beforehand.

I 'upgraded' to Mt Lion over the weekend. It seemed very slow, and sluggish. Within a day I realized also that my Reunion program would not work,
my Quicken would not work, and who knows what else. I kept getting alerts saying that I could not use any PC programs. So, I decided to go back to Snow Leopard - I spent two and a half hours on the phone with two very capable people, then was told that I'd have to take it to an Apple Store. I DO have
extended warranty but a lot of good THAT does! Besides, our nearest store is 160 miles away! So, I took it to our local authorized dealer. It is currently
being worked on, and the minimum will be $189! Fortunately, Time Machine was being backed up by my external hard drive. But, I just received a
call and they can't make my password work to get in! Somehow that has changed back to an old one I don't remember!
MY COMPLAINT: When speaking with a rep about the feasibility of downloading Mt Lion, not ONCE did anyone tell me that I 'might' have these
problems. I NEVER would have upgraded! Now I just want my computer restored to USABLE -

What an unfortunate story.   I hope you will quickly get things back to normal.
To be fair though, there has been quite a lot written about the effects of mountain Lion and the loss of Rosetta, as one example.   I am wondering just how much research you did before buying.
But on the brighter side, you can wipe Mountain Lion and reinstall Snow Leopard with not too much trouble.   It would have been much worse had you bought a new machine with M.L. pre-installed and then found your programs wouldn't work.
Message was edited by: seventy one

Reinstalling Snow Leopard MacBook Air into Mavericks/Lion

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