Can I downgrade a Macbook 7.1 to Snow Leopard?

[sidewinder]

This is really annoying, a full class of Mac Mini's come with Snow Leopard, the teacher MacBook came with Lion. I've tried to stick with it, despite it not staying connected to the domain and being unable to bootcamp into XP, but we've now received Logic Express 9 which isn't compatible with Lion, so I've had enough.

 

I know the usual reply is 'no' when downgrading a Mac, but the fact that this model MacBook originally shipped with Snow Leopard should mean the hardware is still compatible, yes? So if I installed Snow Leopard onto a firewire disk on my older Macbook, updated to 10.6.8, then took an image and put that on the newer MacBook, that should work shouldn't it (despite not being officially supported I'm sure)

 

And yes, I realise if this does work I'll need to buy a copy of Snow Leopard for it, but I want to make sure it works before I do that

[featured_spectre]

Format the machine and reinstall with the disk that came with the Mac Mini. Job done

[sidewinder]

Fairly sure that doesn't work - it won't install from discs that arn't from the same family as far as I can remember

[sidewinder]

Just realised my method won't work either, this Macbook doesn't have any firewire ports. FFS

[sidewinder]

Ah, looks like there are workarounds for Logic anyway. Probably should have checked before I posted. Still annoyed we're stuck with Lion on this though, it's the same as when Leopard and Snow Leopard first came out, guaranteed issues with binding to the domain. SL is lovely and stable now though

[featured_spectre]

I've never had issues...use lion install to format the hdd, turn off MAC mini, insert snow leopard disk, install away...never failed me so far.

[Arthur]

What is the model number of the Mac mini's? Also, have you installed the latest updates for Logic Express? 9.1.4 is required to run Logic Express on Lion.

 

Here's the link to the 9.1.5 update if you need it: support.apple.com/kb/DL1015.

[Chris_Cook]

I had a very similar problem with our two new imacs. Too many problems with AD and an old mac server. Our support company seems to think downgrading was ok.

 

I installed 10.6 (snow leopard retail edition) on a virtualbox pc on my imac, updated it to 10.6.8, then used carbon copy cloner to clone to a sparse image file. This was then copied to the c$ share on my main pc. On the new macs, I repartitioned the HD with the disk utility so we didn't lose 10.7 completely (no install disks for it, just a recovery partition). Then connected to the c$ share, install CCC and clone it back to the new partition. Finally, change the startup disk in the appropriate preference pane, and copy the various iLife apps (Garageband, iMovie, iPhoto) to the new disk, and run each one so it re-downloads all the content and libraries etc. After that, just set it up as normal...

 

Time will tell how well it works as they've just gone out to our media department today.

[Arthur]

I've never had issues...use Lion install to format the HDD, turn off MAC mini, insert Snow Leopard disc, install away... never failed me so far.

...or just open up Disk Utility after you have booted from the Snow Leopard disc and format the HDD.

[Arthur]

I repartitioned the HD with the disk utility so we didn't lose 10.7 completely (no install discs for it, just a recovery partition).

There's no need to keep the Recovery Partition around if you make your own Lion install DVD or USB flash drive.

[HodgeHi]

I have the newly released macbook pros (Thunderbolt) which should have come with lion (free upgrade) which had snow leopard on so it can take them. You could use deploy studio to image the mac mini (fully patched) and then deploy to the Macbook.

[Chris_Cook]

There's no need to keep the Recovery Partition around if you make your own Lion install DVD or USB flash drive.

 

I've seen similar guides to those, but they all assume that you upgraded to lion from the app store. Our macs were pre-installed, and I couldn't find the dmgs they talks about. By this point, I had spent far to long messing around with these macs, and had lots more important stuff to do.

[sidewinder]

Thanks, I'll give it a try with our Mac mini SL image from DeployStudio over half term then. As long as I can either create a recovery disk or keep the recovery partition in case it all goes wrong!

 

I always thought that trying to put an image created on an imac onto a macbook would cause problems, and vice versa, but I guess not then?

[Guest Guest]

Can anyone tell me how you use an install DVD from one model on another model? I've tried macmini, imac, and a different model macbook pro on my macbook pro and all of them said "please use the install media which came with your mac"

[stevenwba]

Can anyone tell me how you use an install DVD from one model on another model? I've tried macmini, imac, and a different model macbook pro on my macbook pro and all of them said "please use the install media which came with your mac"

 

i didn't think you could?

[dayzd]

Can anyone tell me how you use an install DVD from one model on another model? I've tried macmini, imac, and a different model macbook pro on my macbook pro and all of them said "please use the install media which came with your mac"

i didn't think you could?

 

No, you can't. The discs that are (were) supplied with new macs are machine type specific. I.E., An iMac9,1 disc won't boot an iMac10,1. Same as a MacBook Pro disc won't work in a Mac Mini of any description.

 

Only retail discs can start multiple types of machine. Even then, the disc needs to be of suitably high version number for the machine in question -Macs are specific to which version they'll boot from too, as well as the 'big cat' identifier.

So our iMac12,1's won't start from our 10.6.3 retail disc, as they shipped with 10.6.6.

[Arthur]

I've seen similar guides to those, but they all assume that you upgraded to Lion from the App Store.

Ah! In that case, all you have to do is this...

 

Source: www.afp548.com/article.php?story=getting-lion-installers

 

• Boot the hardware you need an image for from the Recovery HD by holding Command-R at power on time.
  
• Plug in a Journaled HFS+ formatted external disk.
  
• Select the Re-install OS X Lion option and target the external disk.
  
• Once the Installer finishes downloading, simply shutdown and unplug the disk.
  

Now when you mount that external disk you will find a directory named Mac OS X Install Data on the root. Inside of this folder is the elusive, hardware-specific, InstallerESD.dmg image that you can feed to SIU or any other imaging tool of choice. Having this installer will now allow you to build out re-deployment images for all of your hardware until rollup installers are available.