Not enough ram to install Snow Leopard...how do I get back to Tiger?

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Ok couple years ago, my husband and I bought a Macbook from a friend. I don't recall getting the discs from him. I recently bought the Snow Leopard upgrade because I couldn't update my itunes and iphone. I was really excited. I am not really tech savvy and don't know much about hardware, etc. So I go to install the SL and it says I don't have enough ram. I hardly have anything on my Mac, so I was surprised. Anyway, now I can't do anything. It's stuck on this screen. It gives me an option to restore from back-up. But when I click on that, there are no options. Any suggestions/help please and thank you!
 
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If you need to reinstall Tiger but don't have the disks, you'll need to call Apple and you can purchase some replacement restore disks for your machine.
 
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Macbook RAM is cheap. Why not buy more memory instead of buying replacement disks?
 
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Macbook RAM is cheap. Why not buy more memory instead of buying replacement disks?

Yeah I have no problem doing that...was planning on it actually. But how would I install it without getting back to any operating system? As I said before, I'm not tech savvy at all.
 

RavingMac

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Yeah I have no problem doing that...was planning on it actually. But how would I install it without getting back to any operating system? As I said before, I'm not tech savvy at all.

ifixit.com
will have step by step instructions on how to install the RAM. Upgrading the RAM is completely independent of the operating system install BTW.
 
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ifixit.com
will have step by step instructions on how to install the RAM. Upgrading the RAM is completely independent of the operating system install BTW.

Ok thanks! So I'm admitting to a blonde moment. I thought I couldn't get to the old OS because when I would turn on pc, it just tried to install SL, then told me not enough memory, then to either restart or go from back-up. So I got a brilliant idea to take the SL cd out and voila back to old laptop. I felt pretty dumb. ;D I will look into buying and install RAM.
 

RavingMac

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Ok thanks! So I'm admitting to a blonde moment. I thought I couldn't get to the old OS because when I would turn on pc, it just tried to install SL, then told me not enough memory, then to either restart or go from back-up. So I got a brilliant idea to take the SL cd out and voila back to old laptop. I felt pretty dumb. ;D I will look into buying and install RAM.
I lost track long ago of the number of times I felt dumb! :)
Glad everything worked out well.
 
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So I go to install the SL and it says I don't have enough ram. I hardly have anything on my Mac, so I was surprised.

Ok, you seem to have connected two things there that aren't related. RAM (Random-Access Memory) is not affected by how much "stuff" (files and programs) you have on your Mac, and vice versa. The more RAM you have, the more programs you can have open simultaneously without degrading performance (speed), for instance. How much stuff you can jam onto the computer is a function of the size (capacity) of the hard disk.
 

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