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.

Similar Messages

Can't boot snow leopard from external drive

I have a copy of snow leopard installed on a separate usb hard drive which I use to run some PowerPC programmes under rosetta. I can attach this USB drive to my Mac Pro and also to an Intel Macbook and choose to start up on this external drive without any issues. However when I try restarting my new 2011 iMac on this external usb drive the machine crashes every time with a kernal panic. Is this problem unique to me or does everyone else have this issue with new iMacs. Mine is a 27" 3.4ghz i& with 12ghb ram installed running 10.72. Is their soemthing I can do to resolve this problem?

I have now solved the problem of being able to boot from either Snow Leopard or Lion on a new Mid 2011 iMac. This is how I did it.
1. Attach an external USB drive to an earlier Mac or borrow one from a friend. In my case I used my 2009 Unibody Macbook (which has Lion installed on it but does allow you to install Snow Leopard on an attached device) Put the Snow Leopard install disc in this machine and tell it to install Snow Leopard on your attached USB Drive.
2. Start up the Macbook (or whatever machine you are using) and get it to restart on the attached USB drive so that it boots up in Snow Leopard. Then when Snow Leopard is up and running on the attached external drive, do a software update to bring it up to 10.68 (the current version). This step is important as I found that if I plugged in the external USB drive into the iMac with only operating system 10.6 installed it would cause a kernal panic on start up when I choose to start up on the external USB drive.
3. With Snow Leopard updated to system 10.68 you can now plug it into your iMac and restart the iMac booting into Snow Leopard from the external USB drive. You do this by either going to System Preferences>Startup disk and choosing the external drive, or by holding down the option key when you restart your Mac and choosing the external USB drive.
4. The next step is to make your iMac dual boot now that you know it can run Snow Leopard successfully from an external USB drive. To do this, go into Utilities>Disk Utility and select your main drive. Select the main disk (with Lion on it) and then choose Partition and choose 2 Partitions. Drag the first partition bundary line down to make the second partition size as small as possible. In my case I had a stock 1TB drive and the smallest partition size it would allow me was 70gb. Create the second partition (assuming you have spare space on your drive to allow this to happen). This will then create a second hard drive icon on your desktop. I renamed mine "Snow Leopard startup".
5. Download the free (and excellent) utility Carbon Copy Cloner and use it to copy your Snow Leopard operating sytem from your attached USB external drive to your new partition.
6. That's it! Now you can choose to start up your iMac from either Lion or Snow Leopard using either method mentioned in 3 above.
7. As a final step I suggest your install your Rosetta only programmes in your new Snow Leopard partition so that you can access them easily and keep them all together.

Cannot boot Snow Leopard from external FireWire drive

I use a Western Digital My Passport Studio 500 GB external drive to back up my MacBook Pro with Time Machine. I had created a 30 GB Leopard boot partition with various utilities and tools; since the small drive goes wherever the laptop goes, I figured it might come in handy to be able to boot the computer in the event something went wrong with its internal 250 GB drive.
Over the weekend, I upgraded the external drive to Snow Leopard, and now it can no longer be used to boot the laptop. The symptoms are truly weird. Holding down the Option key while rebooting does not show the external drive unless I disconnect and reconnect the FireWire cable. The drive then shows up. I select it, and it appears to begin to boot, then it just sits on the gray screen with the little round thingie turning for a long time (five to ten minutes). Eventually, the system boots from its internal drive. This happens regardless of whether I'm connected by means of FireWire 400 or 800.
After spending a lot of time looking at the usual suspects (cables, permissions, PRAM, etc.) I reinstalled Sand Leopard (OK, 10.5) and lo and behold, the drive boots again (though for some reason I still have to go through the disconnect/reconnect routine). Clearly, something in the OS has changed with respect to the way booting from external drives is handled.
On the positive side, I have none of the symptoms described in other threads: Time Machine works flawlessly, and both the boot partition and the Time Machine partition appear on the Snow Leopard desktop every time I connect the drive.
Does anyone have the same issues? Does anyone know of a workaround?
Thanks,
Daniel

Hi,
Working from a MacBook Pro 2.4 (Santa Rosa) with 4gb ram, running OS 10.5.7-
(All external HDs are 7200 rpm)
Shortly after our fresh install of Snow Leopard onto a new but already tested External 1.5 Seagate Barracuda (with the most current firmware), in an OWC Mercury Elite enclosure-
We installed Snow Leopard smoothly to that external HD without any issues, and it booted up from that 1.5T external HD, and worked fine.
Then, still working from the MacBook Pro, I turned on and booted another external HD (a Newertech Guardian Maximus RAID running 10.4.11 via FW800, daisy chained to the 1.5T External with Snow Leopard newly installed.
Again that's MacBook Pro <FW800> Snowy external HD <FW800> 10.4.11 RAID (booted & working from the RAID).
But when I tried to bootup up Snow Leopard, after doing the work on the 10.4.11 RAID-
It would not boot up.
Though Snowy would appear as an available Start Up disk, each time it was selected as the Boot drive,
the Internal HD OS 10.5.7 booted instead.
I changed around the cables and tried repeatedly.
Same result, no Snowy boot.
Even after the OS 10.4.11 external RAID was power down, and disconnected.
After some looking around, I found this forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2136208&tstart=0
Got me thinking.
I tried the USB, and it booted !
I tried the FW400, and it booted !
And mysteriously, at this point- I tried the FW800, and it booted !
And then, the MBP boots seemed to reliably boot from that external, via FW800.
Bizarre.
Snow Cat needs to be taught originally how to find FW800 from the bottom up ?
Turns out, Snow Leopard doesn't like booting,
if the preceding boot was on the 10.4.11 RAID, and work was done with programs there.
So, once again, I repeated this process:
After working with programs on the 10.4.11 external HD,
the MBP would not boot the Snow Leopard external HD,
it defaulted to booting from the MBP internal HD OS 10.5 via FW800.
even though Snowy was selected for Start Up.
This was the case repeatedly.
(It would also boot from the 10.4.11 external RAID, if it were selected for Start Up.)
(In each of these tests below, I only rebooted the computer at each test. I did no work with programs on the various HDs.)
SO, once again, at this point of the process:
I plugged in that Snowy external HD via FW400,
and it booted up fine !
Then I booted up from the Internal 10.5, and tried to boot Snowy via FW800 again.
It worked !
Then I turned on the 10.4.11 RAID external HD, and tried to reboot from the Snowy external HD.
It worked too !
Then I booted from the 10.4.11 RAID, it came up fine.
Then booted from the Snowy, it came up fine.
Then booted from the Internal HD 10.5, it came up fine.
Then booted from Snowy again, it came up fine.
Then I turned off the 10.4.11 HD, booted from Snowy, it came up fine.
Then booted from the Internal, it came up fine.
Then tried Snowy one last time, it came up fine.
Anyway, the issue is:
It works fine-
Except when I do work within the programs on the 10.4.11 external RAID.
Then I have to use FW400 or USB to get it to boot once again . . .
Regardless of whether the other external HD is removed from the system.
It's some sort of flaw, and totally repeatable in testing.
Hopefully, it will be fixed soon.
Howard

Can't boot Snow Leopard from USB drive made in Yosemite

Hi all,
I have a brand new macbook pro running Yosemite, but some of the software I have will only run in Snow Leopard.
Running Snow Leopard as a Virtual Machine has been clunky, so I wanted to try an alternative and install Snow Leopard onto an external HD and work from that.
I got hold of the Snow Leopard dmg file and created a bootable USB thumb drive (I did this within Yosemite) to try to install it onto the external HD. I used the instructions here:
http://www.maciverse.com/installing-snow-leopard-onto-an-external-hard-drive.htm l
But when I restart the computer and try and boot from the USB drive, I just get the grey background with dark grey apple symbol, indefinitely. The installation process never commences.
What am I not doing right?
Thanks in advance for any insights.

You can only do what you are trying from a model that can be booted into Snow Leopard. You have a 2014 model that can only be booted by Mavericks or Yosemite. You cannot run Snow Leopard on your machine except in a VM or a Mac from 2010 or earlier.

Install snow leopard from external hard drive-terminal problems!

hi everybody ,
i have a big problem :s
wanted to restore and getting "Restore Failure Could not find any scan information... then i've followed some terminal commands..finished restoring and couldn't boot cause i only find Macintosh HD when i use "alt option" when i restart my macbook pro and even if i go to "startup Disk" i can find my partition of the external hard drive but when i click on it nd do retart it's can't boot ...another thing is tht m having a slow start and it's ask for my Password (i've no problem with password it just doesn't ask me to enter it before and i have internet and server failure)
Due to terminal commands?? :((
Plz help :s

"How to install Snow Leopard from an External Hard Drive"
* Launch Disk Utility
* Select the External Firewire/USB device that you want to use as the boot drive for the upgrade
* Click “Partition” from the menu options
* Select 1 Partition, then click “Options” below the partition scheme
* Select the top option for “GUID Partition Table” – it MUST be GUID to be bootable!
* Click OK to create the GUID partition (this will reformat the drive, ie: all data is lost)
* Next, click the “Restore” tab within Disk Utility
* Select your newly made Snow Leopard 10.6 Install DVD image and restore this image to the GUID partition you just created OR…
* Alternatively, you can select the Snow Leopard Install DVD and restore directly from the DVD to the GUID partition
* After the restoration is complete, your GUID partition will now be bootable by Mac OS X!
* Reboot the Mac holding down the “Option” key to pull up the boot loader, select the Snow Leopard install drive you just created rather than your default Mac OS hard drive
* Install Snow Leopard as usual!
Hope this helps!

Running Snow Leopard from External Hard Drive

I have some teacher software that lion won't run. It was suggested to me to run snow leopard from an external hard drive. I have an external WD hardrive for mac. Can someone share with me on how to do it?
Thanks!

Have a look here
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1948

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!

Boot Snow Leopard from Thumb Drive in Single User Mode on Macbook Air

I'm trying to boot from a thumb drive that I transferred the Snow Leopard .dmg on. My macbook air only lets me get into single user mode. Every time I try to boot or enter safe mode or regular mode, the Macbook Air shuts down.

I do have the installation media on my usb flash drive. I'm sure it's leopard, and the problem is that I cannot get passed the apple logo on boot. The laptop turns off after trying to finish the boot for twenty seconds. However, I can get into single user mode. I just can't seem to install the media in single user mode due to my lack of know how.

Can I upgrade to mountain lion and skip snow leopard from my OS X 10.6.8?

Hi guys, Im not sure on this thus any one can advice me on this?
I'v missed the snow leopard upgrade and now came the mountain lion; can I just upgrade and down the m.lion directly? Or do I need the snow leopard in order to install the mountain lion?

Mac OS X 10.6.8 is Snow Leopard and can be upgraded directly to Mountain Lion 10.8 without going through Lion 10.7.
(70239)

How can i partition my hard drive with lion on it and install snow leopard from time machine

How do I partition my hard drive which has lion on it and reinstall os6 from my time machine?

You going to need a second harddrive. It is riskie to resize your haddrive with live data on it. You need a backup of the data. That said, you might as well copy your data to the second harddrive. Repartition. Then copy the data back. I bought a 128gig flash drive from walmart for $32.
There were repartition commands introduced in 10.4.6 to repartition the harddrive.
For what it is worth, you can non-destructively partition a harddrive from single user mode in 10.4.6 or greater. Of course, you should have a backup of the harddrive.
http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/articles/apple-mac-os-x/nondestructive-partitioning.php

How do I install and BOOT Windows 7 on External Hard Drive?

Please please please help! I've been browsing the net for 2 days straight and can't find a decent answer.
I've partitioned my external hard drive (Western Digital Passport) using Disk Utility.
I have 4 paritions in total; 2 intended for Mac and 2 intended for Windows.
I used a GUID partition table for all 4 as displayed on the below picture.
Although I should note that when my external hard disk is booted in Windows it says that it uses Master Boot Record, please see picture 2 below.
I formatted the Mac Partitions to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the Windows Partitions to ExFat.
The Macs work beautifully; having successfully installed and booted Snow Leopard on them, and then backed up my 2 internal Mac Drives to them.
However, the Windows ones are a complete nightmare and I have no idea how to installl Windows 7 and then use them from there.
Can anyone offer a solution? I've heard so many conflicting ideas about this that it's made me dizzy just reading it all.
Thanks!

Yeah, I use Windows on bootcamp for both my Imac and my Macbook Pro.
In fact, seeing as my Mac partition on my external hard drive was successful i.e. I installed and can boot from them any time I like, couldn't I just use the external hard drive's partitions' bootcamp assistant and install/boot windows on there?

How can I revert to Snow Leopard from Mountain Lion on a 2013 iMac?

I have a brand new 27" 2.9Ghz iMac, bought a few days ago, equipped with Mountain Lion. I'm using it for recording, and at the time, my recording software and hardware are incompatible. On Snow Leopard, however, it all runs flawlessly. I know I can't simply revert to Snow Leopard, as there is some sort of firmware that blocks these types of downgrades. Can I partition the internal hardrive and install Snow Leopard and boot from that partition? I have no real use for Mt. Lion for the time being, so I wouldn't need to boot them both simultaneously or even go back and forth. I just want Snow Leopard...any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
You have different problems with a Late 2012 iMac and Snow Leopard:
1. The firmware doesn't allow you to run it.
2. Snow Leopard isn't compatible because it hasn't got the drivers for the hardware of the iMac. Furthermore, you can only run OS X 10.8.1, 10.8.2 or 10.8.3 on a Late 2012 iMac at the moment, because older versions haven't got the drivers it needs.
3. It's illegal.
As you can see, you can't run Snow Leopard natively. If this is a requirement, I suggest you to return your iMac and search a Mid 2011 iMac with Snow Leopard (there are some Mid 2011 iMacs that came with Snow Leopard, although most of them came with OS X Lion). If you don't find anything, buy a Mid 2010 iMac.
Another possibility is to buy Snow Leopard Server and install it on a virtual machine, but I doubt it's legal

I want to install Yosemite onto an external hard drive, and keep Snow Leopard installed on the internal hard drive. I want to be able to boot from either system, depending upon circumstance (at least until Yosemite is stable). Is this possible?

iMac, Model Identifier iMac12,1 with 121.5" screen, 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, 1 TB internal hard drive, running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 from internal drive.
I want to install Yosemite onto a 1 TB external hard drive (OWC) , and keep Snow Leopard installed on the internal hard drive. I want to be able to boot from either system, depending upon circumstance (at least until Yosemite is stable). Is this possible?

It is possible. I'll let you read some articles that cover the setup:
Starting from an external USB storage device (Intel-based Macs) - Apple Support
or
http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/22/boot-mac-external-drive/

Mac Pro 2010 triple boot (Snow Leopard + Windows + Yosemite)?

Hello All,
This is my first question here, I'm usually trying to find the answer myself, but this time I wasn't able to find anything clear enough to me. So I hope that someone can give me clear and easy to understand answer. I must also tell that my English isn't perfect, but should be more than good enough for communication. :-)
I have Mac Pro 2010, 4 core CPU 3.2 GHz, 6 GB RAM, ATI 5870.
HD Bay 1: WD Black 1 TB - Boot Snow Leopard 10.6.8
(Just to add: I am happy because when I bought my Mac it came with 10.6. I am happy with it, it's stable, and I want to keep it as it is)
HD Bay 2: WD Black 1 TB - Boot Windows 7 x64 (bootcamp, full drive)
(I am very happy how it works, so I want to keep it as is)
HD Bay 3: WD Green 2 TB - for all kind of data storage
HD Bay 4: Was empty until yesterday, but now I have another WD Black 1 TB to put it in - still not formatted.
I would like to install Yosemite on that new drive (first I was thinking about Maverick, but then I saw that some new applications will not run, like Final Cut Pro X, new MS Office, still in beta, plus I would like to use iMessage, etc.), and keep everything else as it is now - absolutelly untouched.
• Is it safe to do it, or I can make some mistake and lose Snow Leo and/or Windows?
• Is position of the drives important? Should I, for example, put new drive in a Bay 3, and move data disk to Bay 4, or it doesn't matter?
• When I download it from App Store, and when installation starts automatically, do I have an option to select to keep untouched everything I have now?
(I don't want even to collect any data from Snow Leopard, like mail settings, bookmarks, applications installed - absolutely nothing, it should run as a totally new comp and without any interaction with Snow Leopard, except ordinary hard disk access, like any other hard drive)
• Will my bootcamp drive be safe, I will still be able to boot from it?
I was also thinking about this:
I saw that it is possible to make bootable USB flash drive with installation. If I do that, and if I phisically unplug all other drives except a new one, then do installation, shut it down, and plug back all other drives, will everything work? Will I have triple boot when I press option key during start-up? Does all this makes sense at all to you?
Finally, does anyone have some experience with Mac Pro 2010 + ATI 5870 with Yosemite? Is it smooth, no problems with graphics or some other things?
I will really appreciate some answer about all this.
Cheers!

Some tips about Yosemite and Core Storage from MacIntouch Reader Reports on Yosemite:
Ric Ford [MacInTouch]
Yosemite's changes have led to questions and confusion about disk formatting and partitioning issues, backward compatibility, and dual-booting Mac OS X 10.6 and Yosemite. Below are a few notes on these issues from an email discussion (questions, tips and clarifications are welcome).
Core Storage changes debuted in OS X 10.7 Lion, with Apple's new FileVault 2 whole-disk encryption and hidden Recovery Partition.
Generally, running OS X 10.7 and up shouldn't corrupt or convert the HFS+ partitions used by pre-OS X 10.7 systems (still supported in later OS X versions). There are, however, a few special cases to beware, and this is where things get confusing. Here are some specific issues:
1) FileVault 2 encryption and "Fusion" drives both depend on Core Storage, so applying those to any partition will render it inaccessible by pre-OS X 10.7 systems.
2) Yosemite's installation process silently converts a partition to Core Storage, incompatible with Mac OS X 10.6 and earlier. Ars Technica's review describes this issue.
3) Running Disk Utility's "repair" function in Yosemite against a Mac OS X 10.6 (HFS+) partition has caused problems in some cases, such as making the Mac OS X 10.6 partition unbootable.
(A search for Core Storage on MacInTouch will turn up more discussion and tips.)
See also:
Core Storage [Wikipedia]
OS X Mountain Lion Core Technologies Overview (PDF) [Apple]
OS X 10.10 Yosemite: Installation [Ars Technica]
File system changes in Lion [Ars Technica]
Can't remove Core Storage from hard drive [Apple Discussions]
How To: Disable CoreStorage on Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) [Symantec]
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/yosemite/index.html#d16apr2015

Why can't brand new MacBookPro9,1 (OEM Mountain-Lion) boot from Snow Leopard on external drive, or internal partition?

Why can't brand new MacBookPro9,1 (OEM Mountain-Lion) boot from Snow Leopard on external drive, or internal partition?
Is this because of hardware changes? Or firmware changes? Or is it just and Apple Inc. administrative fiat?

@Steve Holton: Sorry Steve, but you're wrong about that one . I'm using 10.8 (purchased and downloaded) on the internal HD of this MBP8,3 (2.2 GHz, 17"), and I am also able to boot into 10.7.4 and 10.6.8 from external FW800 partitions.
However, I DO have problems with my MBP9,1. It came with 10.7.4 installed and ran fine. Then I purchased and installed 10.8. It ran fine but could no longer boot from 10.7.4 on an external partition. I then reinstalled 10.7.4 on the internal HD and discovered that it is still unable to boot (even 10.7.4) from an external FW800 partition.
One of Apple's Senior Support Advisors has done some remote troubleshooting but the case is still open and unresolved. An earlier Apple Support case suggested that when, I installed the downloaded copy of 10.8, there had been a "firmware update" (behind the scenes) that is now causing the problems with booting from my external partition(s). This apparently is "a bug": it is not what is supposed to happen.
So - I believe - "the problem" really has nothing to do with hardware capability. It is strictly about Apple's strategy for "managing its future customer base". If you don't like it - use something else - I am seriously considering Ubuntu as an alternative.
If there's a hidden caveat in all this it's probably "Read Appple's Licence Agreement VERY Carefully".

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

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for