Snow Leopard will not install on my iMac

When attempting to install Snow Leopard on my iMac, the install says that there is no bootable disk. We have the drive partitioned - front drive has OS, back drive is exclusively storage. It says neither drive is bootable, yet we do indeed boot.

Is your iMac an Intel-based? Are you upgrading from Tiger or Leopard? I suspect the issue lies with your drive not being properly formatted with the GUID partition table which is native to Leopard and Snow Leopard. Generally, you can find more information here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1600

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    Yes, it is ridiculous how it is impossible to install Snow Leopard. I have two Snow Leopard DVDs: one that I purchased for a Macbook soon after it's release (10.6.0), and one that came with my iMac (10.6.4). Both of these boot up my Macbook (running 10.6.7) just fine. My SL 10.6.0 DVD mounts onto my iMac (Lion 10.7.0), but you cannot run the install. I attempted to boot from this DVD and got the infinite white screen and Apple logo, as some have reported above. The other SL 10.6.4 DVD will not even mount in Lion, and will not even show up as a bootable drive when I attempt to select it after holding alt/option on reboot.
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    After that I'd boot the machine in target disk mode (How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode) and boot the other machine to the install disk - you should then be able to install to the first iMacs HD, it'll show up with a firewire symbol when you "select you destination".
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  • Snow Leopard will not install on Macbook Air--have spent days on this!

    Hi, all!
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    Thanks!
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    It's highly likely that your wireless network is the problem. Normally I'd recommend grabbing a couple pieces of CAT5 and hooking both machines up via wired network temporarily but that's not an option with the Air.
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  • Snow Leopard will not install MacBook 1.83 GHz

    Hi,
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    Thanks

    Oh, I see. Indeed, what I meant by "retail DVD" was that I have a 10.6.6 that came with my MacBook Pro. I will try to get a Snow Leopard Install DVD 10.6 to see if it solves the issue.
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  • Snow leopard will not install

    I have an old mac Book with OS X 10.5.8 running on it and I have a family DVD version of leopard that I have installed on my imac( that currently runs Lion(10.7.2) so it should install in my mac book. When I insert it into the macbook it whizzes for a bit and then spits out the dvd. I need to update this mac book so that I can run icloud etc on this machine to keep up with all my appointments etc ( I did check that it has an intel processor as required for lion)
    Any ideas?

    Sounds like the drive is having problems.  Try:
    Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
    Apple Portables: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
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    Hey all,
    so I have upgraded all of my laptops in the house with leopard with absolutely no problems. So I go to upgrade tiger to leopard on my iMac and it restarts fine but when you have to choose a location for it to install it tells you that it must erase the entire volume.
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    please help!!

    btupper wrote:
    sorry but could you elaborate a touch, i guess i am not as tech saavy as I think I am....could you explain the abvr. and expand....sorry and thanks!!
    In your Utilities folder is an app called DU for Disk Utility.app
    Run it, select your physical drive and check the disk.
    Then select your OS-X partition and run permissions repair.
    Zapping the PRAM is a process of resetting some of the boot items.
    Here's how to "zap PRAM"
    ■
    Shut down your computer. Turn the computer back on and immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R, continuing to press until you hear the startup sound for the second time. This resets the computer’s parameter random-access memory (PRAM).
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    Sometimes we forget about this Mac argot which has no correspondence to the PC world.
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  • My early Intel iMac running Snow Leopard will not boot past the apple logo. I have tried holding the c key and inserting the install disk, but nothing. What do I try next?

    My early Intel iMac running Snow Leopard will not boot past the apple logo. I have tried holding the c key and inserting the install disk, but nothing. What do I try next?

    I have tried resetting PRAM and all other items listed in the Apple support site. This happened after an update to iTunes was added. Also this is happening to other people. Please help.

  • If I upgrade from Mac OS v 10.5.8 to 10.6 Snow leopard will my installed applications such as timemachine and MS Offfice for Mac 2008 still work?

    If I upgrade from Mac OS v 10.5.8 to 10.6 Snow leopard will my installed applications such as MS Office for Mac 2008 still work? Will time machine files created under OS 10.5 still be accessible?

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    I am having some problems with downloading, possibly settings are incorrect, esp. flashplayer upgrade will not install - i have iMac 8.1 osx v10.5.8 - processor: 3.06 ghz intel core2 duo mem: 2 gb 800 mhz ddr2 sdram - i am considering making an appt with Apple store nearby since we have a few in vicinity but thought i would give the online support a try.

    The latest version of Adobe FlashPlayer can be obtained from here:
    http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFl ash
    You can check here what version of Flash player you actually have installed:  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/155/tn_15507.html
    You can check here:  http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/  to see which version you should install for your Mac and OS.
    You should first uninstall any previous version of Flash Player, using the uninstaller from here (make sure you use the correct one!):
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  • HT201364 Macmini2 running Snow Leopard will not upgrade to Mavericks

    Macmini2 running Snow Leopard will not upgrade to Mavericks.  Hardware is on the list but will not upgrade.

    If you have a MacMini 2 as indicated, that is a Late '07
    OVERVIEW
    Introduced     August 2007
    Discontinued     March 2009
    Model Identifier     Macmini2,1

  • PSE 8 will not install on new imac OSX Snow Leopard

    28. Feb 26, 2010 4:16 PM in response to: docmark86
    Re: PSE8 will not install on Mac Snow Leopard 10.6.1
    I have a new iMac 21.5 screen with OSX Snow Leopard.  I installed IWork and turbo tax with no problem.  Nothing else.
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    Doc

    Doc, I would suggest go to the font location which from your post is: <Macintosh HD>/Library/Fonts/MinionPro-Bold.otf. There should be a font file with this name. If it exists, just "cut" it from this location and paste it on the desktop for some time and then try to install PSE again and see if that works.
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    In either case, please do attach the installer log file in the forum thread so that I can have a look at it. They can be located at the below location:
    <Macintosh HD>/Library/Logs/Adobe/Installer/"...Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0...."
    If there are multiple copies of the installer log files, then please delete them and then try to install PSE 8 again. If it fails, quit the installer and attach the new log files which are generated to this thread.
    Regards,
    Ankush

  • SNOW LEOPARD WILL NOT LOAD

    Hi Curently running 10.5.8 and have upgraded all other equipment to iso7 and brought new  5s but this software is not compatable i have brought snow leopard but it will not load on my  imac 5,1 is 2ghz intel core 2 duo with 2gb 667 mhz ddr2 sdram keeps saying disk is dirty  clean and try again i have even changed disk at shop but does not work please help.
    Mark

    Maybe your reader lense is dirty, you can by a DVD cleaning disk, AMazon, Best Buy etc...

  • Leopard will not install on my Power G5

    I recently purchased Leopard and cannot install it on my Power Mac G5.
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    It sounds like you purchased Snow Leopard and not Leopard. It is Snow Leopard which requires the Intel processor and not Leopard.
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