Installing Snow Leopard onto clean Macbook

Hi All

I have a older Macbook (Model A1181 : Macbook 2,1) that was my wife's laptop prior to us buying a new Macbook Pro last week. The Macbook was running Lion on it, but I wanted to erase the hard drive and do a clean install of Lion on it starting with my Snow Leopard install disc.

I was able to erase the hard drive with no problems. When it finished, the Snow Leopard disc automatically booted and the Snow Leopard installation began. I went away from my office for 10 mins or so to see that the Macbook's screen was black. I "work" it up by moving my finger across the touch pad to discover that the installation of Snow Leopard had frozen at "29 minutes to install". Thinking the freeze was due to the machine being inactive, I restarted the mating my holding the power button. While the machine restarted I began holding the "C" key as I thought that was how to boot the machine from the Snow Leopard disc to try my installation again.

Problem now being, I cannot get the Macbook to boot from the disc. I sit there for 5 plus minutes with my finger on the "C" key to no avail. It shows the grey apple logo screen with a circular thing in motion underneath it, but never gets to the installer. I've now tried multiple times.

When I restart the Macbook without touching a key, it simply spits out the disc and I have a gray screen showing with no Apple logo.

Any help would be appreciated, thank you!!!

Regarding the Snow Leopard install disk you're using. Is it white disk with a photo of a Snow Leopard on it...or is it a grey colored disk. If it's a grey-colored disk...where did it come from?

- Nick

Hi Nick

It is the white disc with a picture of a "snow leopard" on it. I actually got it to install after trying many times. I think the disc just needed cleaned off?

However, now I would like to upgrade the machine to Lion (it cannot run mountain lion). I'm not finding where I can purchase Lion. Any ideas?

Thank you

reese2147 said:

It is the white disc with a picture of a "snow leopard" on it. I actually got it to install after trying many times. I think the disc just needed cleaned off?

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Ahh...very good & congrats. Sometimes the disks do get dirty.

reese2147 said:

However, now I would like to upgrade the machine to Lion (it cannot run mountain lion). I'm not finding where I can purchase Lion. Any ideas?

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Unfortunately no "solid" ideas at the moment. When Apple released Mountain Lion (10.8)...they pulled Lion (10.7) from the Mac App Store. So there's no way to download Lion at the current time.

As you may know...Apple made Lion available in two ways...a $29 download from the Mac App Store...and on a $69 USB stick.

If you wanted to get the Lion on USB stick...I have seen some selling on e-Bay...but who knows how much they will sell for. Maybe more than $69...maybe not. Here's one example:

OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive | eBay

Good luck,

- Nick

Since she was running Lion on it already, you should be able to sign in to the Mac App Store with the iTunes account she used to buy Lion with and re-download it. Just click on the Purchases menu item up top. It should still be in the list.

EDIT: that may not be so actually. A more recent article than the one I first referenced says you can find it by holding down the OPTION key before clicking on the Purchases menu. I just tried it myself and it didn't appear though that may be either because I'm on Mountain Lion or maybe I hid the purchase since I had a backup and now no reason to downgrade (I think I hid it, can't recall for sure).
http://www.macworld.com/article/1167879/apple_pulls_lion_from_the_mac_app_store.html

lifeisabeach said:

Since she was running Lion on it already, you should be able to sign in to the Mac App Store with the iTunes account she used to buy Lion with and re-download it. Just click on the Purchases menu item up top. It should still be in the list.

Click to expand...

Ahh...I missed that detail!! Definitely the better option!

- Nick

Thanks guys, I was able to sign into the app store using her Apple ID and download Lion again. It is odd to me though that Apple wouldn't have Lion available for those whose macs do not support Mountain Lion....

Thanks for the help!

reese2147 said:

Thanks guys, I was able to sign into the app store using her Apple ID and download Lion again.

Click to expand...

Congratulations...problems solved!!

reese2147 said:

It is odd to me though that Apple wouldn't have Lion available for those whose macs do not support Mountain Lion....

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Don't worry...you're not alone with this thought!

- Nick

reese2147 said:

Thanks guys, I was able to sign into the app store using her Apple ID and download Lion again. It is odd to me though that Apple wouldn't have Lion available for those whose macs do not support Mountain Lion....

Click to expand...

Agreed. At the least, the MAS should be made capable of determining if the system logged in is compatible with Mountain Lion and, if it isn't, make Lion available as an alternative.

This is a good reason to continue doing what I've done for Lion and now Mountain Lion... The first thing I did after downloading it was to make a bootable install image for it. Sounds like a good idea to hang on to those, in case downloading it again becomes problematic!

Great idea kcollins... I don't suppose you could point me in the direction of how to do this?

reese2147 said:

Great idea kcollins... I don't suppose you could point me in the direction of how to do this?

Click to expand...

No reason to wait an unknown amount of time for a reply...a quick Google search easily provides the answer:

How to make a bootable Lion install disc or drive | Macworld

- Nick

Yes, I did some google searching, but I would rather wait to get a trusted response rather than trust myself and end up destroying my mac in some way... ha ha

thanks for the help

The one I used to install Mountain Lion on all my machines was:

Serial Serveur » Lion DiskMaker (US)

I think for Lion I located the .DMG manually and created a DVD with Disk Utility. This time I used a USB drive, which is MUCH faster.. Not sure Mountain Lion will fit on a DVD either...

reese2147 said:

Yes, I did some google searching, but I would rather wait to get a trusted response rather than trust myself and end up destroying my mac in some way... ha ha

thanks for the help

Click to expand...

If you did some searching initially...are you saying you don't trust MacWorld or other trusted internet sources to provide accurate info??

Making a bootable disk or USB stick for OS 10.7 or 10.8 can be a bit of an involved process...and so a trusted internet source (such as MacWorld) will spell out the steps in MUCH greater detail than most folks are willing to laboriously type out on an internet forum!

This is why the "Google Search" option is both a faster way to get an answer...and a way to get a much more detailed answer. That's why I provided the link. Why reinvent the wheel...when someone else (like MacWorld and other internet publications) have already done it!

- Nick

Hey guys... I was going to start a new post but this is very similar to mine.. I have an A1311 iMac and when I try to boot it from the snow leopard cd it brings up the apple logo with the "gear" at the bottom and hangs there.

I have tried the grey cd and the cd with the leopard on it and they both do the same thing. I have also tried an external cd-rom vs the internal cd-rom. Any ideas?

Greenmet29 said:

I have tried the grey cd and the cd with the leopard on it and they both do the same thing. I have also tried an external cd-rom vs the internal cd-rom. Any ideas?

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Did the grey CD computer come with your computer when new...or did it come from somewhere else?

When you say the "CD with the Leopard on it"...are we talking an OS 10.6 install CD?

Bottom line...if it is the original grey CD that came with the computer...and if the Snow Leopard install CD is not dirty or damaged...then it would seem that if both CD's don't get the job done...this would seem to indicate that maybe your iMac's HD is bad.

- Nick

p.s. You didn't mention why you were trying to boot from the CD's in the first place. Are you trying to reinstall the OS? And if so...why are you reinstalling the OS (what happened)?

Neither CD came with the computer, the computer came from a pawn shop and it has a password on it, so it won't let me do anything with it. I have tried to boot from the CD with the OS loaded and it asks for the password and then when I try to boot from the option menu it just freezes

I don't really thing that it's a hard drive problem because the computer runs fine as far as accessing the info that is on it, etc. It just won't let me install new software or anything that needs the admin password. I'm thinking about contacting Apple, but they are wanting to charge 49.00 and i'm afraid that they aren't going to be able to fix the problem and they're still going to charge me.

Is there a way to test the hard drive on these computers?

Greenmet29 said:

Neither CD came with the computer, the computer came from a pawn shop and it has a password on it, so it won't let me do anything with it. I have tried to boot from the CD with the OS loaded and it asks for the password and then when I try to boot from the option menu it just freezes

I don't really thing that it's a hard drive problem because the computer runs fine as far as accessing the info that is on it, etc. It just won't let me install new software or anything that needs the admin password. I'm thinking about contacting Apple, but they are wanting to charge 49.00 and i'm afraid that they aren't going to be able to fix the problem and they're still going to charge me.

Is there a way to test the hard drive on these computers?

Click to expand...

Those details help a bunch.

If those grey CD's DID NOT originally come with the computer...then they won't work (they are model specific). As far as the password problem...if this comes up when you boot from a CD...this may be a "firmware" password...which is a much bigger problem than a password setup by user accounts in the OS.

- Nick

Nick,

Thanks for all of your help. I don't think that it's a firmware password because it says that it's a user password when the computer is booted.

The version of os x that this computer has on it is 10.6.3. If I can get my hands on a dvd with that version on it do you think that it will work? Not the grey one, but the one with the snow leopard on it?