Snow leopard on an external drive

Can I run Snow Leopard on a separate external drive, with Lion on my iMac, and switch over to Snow Leopard, using the iMac as a display?

You certainly can.
I do that - I have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on an external firewire drive, and Lion on the internal. Switching from one to the other is simply a matter of using the Startup Disk control pane in System Preferences to select the other volume, then restarting.
Note - for booting purposes, it would be best to use a firewire drive rather than a USB drive. Reason - connection speed. USB's sustained throughput is just too slow for comfortable use.

Similar Messages

  • Can I upgrade to Lion given that I currently run Snow Leopard on an external drive?

    I run Snow Leopard on an external HD. If I upgrade to Lion will it install and run there successfully? My internal HD is dead.

    Yes it will, in fact that was my configuartion for a while before I installed on the internal.

  • I upgraded to Snow Leopard on an external drive.  how do I reconnect to my old data?

    I upgraded my Mac Mini from Leopard to Snow Leopard.  My old system is on the internal drive and the new OS is on a 500GB external hard drive plugged in via firewire. I made the mistake of not selecting for the install to include data from other volumes.  Now I cannot find how to include that data from the old volume. In fact, the new iTunes does not even see my iTunes library installed on the same volume.  iTunes does not even detect when I plug in my iPad.  Please point me in the write direction.  there is no useful info in the manuals. 
    thanks,
    Len

    Thanks John, that was it.  To tell the truth, the name Migration Assistant finally came back to me even before I saw your message, but that was pure luck.  I was disappointed that searching on my Mac and the Apple support site did not bring up that term.  Even having found the tool, the creators had apparently not thought of migrating from the another drive on the same computer.  Pretty big oversight to me.  Luckily I've been using Time Machine on another external drive and that option was available and worked. 
    Thanks again because if I had not thought that name and you had not responded, I would be veeeeerrry frustrated.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Install Leopard and Snow Leopard from an external drive?

    Hey guys,
    I have a 120GB ext drive and was curious as to if its possible to install Leopard and Snow Leopard from it if I have the DMG's. I guess my main question is how would I setup formatting in Disk Utility?
    Thanks!

    Set up two 10GB partitions and a third partition for the rest of the drive on the external drive, use Disk Utility to "Restore" the mounted installer DVD to a 10GB partition on the drive.
    Plug the drive into a Mac and hold the option key down during boot. Select the installer you wish to use.

  • Can the new Mac Mini boot Snow Leopard from an external hard drive?

    I currently boot my 2009 Mac Mini from a FW800 external drive with 10.6.8. If I just plug my external drive into a new 2011 Mac Mini, will it boot into Snow Leopard if I set it as the startup disk or will I get a kernel panic?

    I bought a 2011 Mac Mini, which came with Lion installed. I thought maybe I could repartition it and have a Snow Leopard partition. So I repartitioned it (500gb split into two 250gb partitions). I named the new partition "SnowLeopard" just to make it easy for me to tell the difference.
    I attached the external DVD and put in a Snow Leopard installer disc, holding down the C key so it would boot and install from that, but it just spun for awhile. Doesn't appear to work.
    Then I read somewhere else that someone had managed to clone a copy of Snow Leopard onto an external drive and boot from that. In their situation they were talking about a MacBook, but the principle seemed sane.
    So I rebooted, holding down the T key to put the Mac Mini into Target hard disk mode, and attached it via Firewire to another MacMini (circa 2008 or so, not sure of year, but it was upgraded last year to Snow Leopard and has been upgraded along and along). Then I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy Snow Leopard (that is, the entire hard disk-- System and all applications and data) to my newer Mac Mini's "snow leopard" partition.
    For yucks, when it was done cloning, I restarted the older Mac Mini, and had it boot from the newer Mac Mini's snow leopard partition--- it worked! To make it easy to tell the difference, I changed the desktop background to something completely different. I think I tried booting from Lion but I can't remember if that worked.
    Then I rebooted the newer Mac Mini, which booted up in Lion, of course. Going into System Settings, I changed the startup disk to the "snow leopard" partition, and rebooted, and it booted up in Snow Leopard.
    I have yet to test the applications on the Snow Leopard partition. Another problem has arisen.
    Because with both of the Mac MInis being active on the network, they both had the same computer and user name. So I renamed the newer Mac Mini to something completely different, and changed the password.
    Unfortunately, now I cannot change any other setting in the System Settings that requires a password. While the newer Snow Leopard lets me log in with the new user and new password, whenever I try to click the "lock" icon to change something, I'm prompted for a username and password. Apparently this is some different username and password than either the new or old username/password.
    I've tried various combinations of both: new user/old password, old user/new password, old user/old password, etc.
    So if you do what I've done, be careful about changing the username and password on your cloned computer. I think it may be wiser to create a new user and then delete the old cloned users. I may just have to re-clone the old Mac Mini to the new one again.
    If anyone has any ideas about this password conundrum, please pass along!

  • How do I install leopard on an external drive

    I have been unable to install snow leopard on my external drive, when I put the install disc in the drive on the iMAC, it shows up on the desktop, but i cannot get it to install on the external drive, the iMAC has Lion installed.

    I'd like an answer to the original question, too.  I have a brand new Intel iMac which came preloaded with Lion.  I'd like to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive for a variety of reasons.  I would rather NOT erase the internal hard drive of the iMac, if possible.  Of course, I get this same message that, "You cannot install Snow Leopard on this machine running Lion" more or less.  Does anyone have a method of faking out the installer so it will install Snow Leopard onto an external hard drive even though the Mac is running Lion?

  • 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

  • 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.)

  • Snow Leopard on an external hard drive; sign-in issues, Snow Leopard on an external hard drive; sign-in issues

    I have an older (circa 2006) MacBook running Tiger. I've been able to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive and when I restart, it seems to boot from the external drive. However, it asks for a user name and password and the combination I use in Tiger doesn't work. I don't get an option for an admin user/password.
    Any suggestions?

    If you did a fresh installation from the original installer disk, then unless you used Migration Utility as part of the installation then you would have been stepped through the process to set up a user acount. Without that there would be no account to log into. So either you don't remember, you didn't install on an empty drive, or you used Migration Utility.
    In any case, boot from the original installer, select the external drive, and under the Utilities menu choose Password Reset.
    Regards.

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