One Mac, two versions of OS X

#15 AMCarter3

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Posted 23 November 2012 - 07:59 AM

I forgot to mention the key issue I encountered... I already have Snow Leopard installed on an external drive but my new MBPro will NOT startup off this drive. That is the hardware limitation I encountered and confirmed with the Apple tech guy.

So, I need to learn how to create a partition and install some kind of VM software that emulates OLDER Apple hardware that WILL run Snow Leopard. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

#16 kaydet17

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Posted 23 November 2012 - 08:21 AM

I was given a brand new 2012 21.5" IMAC with Mountain Lion Installed. I still need Snow Leopard. Can I partition the hard drive on the new IMAC keeping Mountain Lion installed on that partition. Can I then load Snow Leopard on the other partition thereby having both on the new IMAC. Thanks, Kaydet17

#17 Martini6p5

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Posted 23 November 2012 - 12:32 PM

OK, on my Mac Mini that came with Snow Leopard, and still runs it, I have an external drive with a partition that has (or can be made to have) a bootable installation of Mountain Lion. More likely I would upgrade Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion and then reinstall Snow Leopard (which I would use less often) on the external drive. Either way I could dual boot the two versions, but I still have questions.

Can I use the same Documents folder for both versions? Physically, yes, I can create a link so that Documents in one version is a pointer to the actual Documents folder on the other drive, but would that cause problems?

Can I use the same Applications folder for both versions? Same question as above.

#18 AMCarter3

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Posted 23 November 2012 - 03:20 PM

I can't say for sure about an iMac, but the Apple tech guy I talked to said the hardware design of the latest "Mac's" will NOT allow Snow Leopard to be installed. In other words, SL is not compatible with mid-2012 Mac computers... SL cannot be installed.

Quote

#19 jackew

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Posted 23 November 2012 - 04:51 PM

I have an iMac that falls just outside of the Mountain Lion requirements, so was pleasantly surprised to find I could use it in Virtual mode. But how do you download it? Only Apple sells it, but it does not like my system and simply cancels the order.

jackew

#20 AMCarter3

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Posted 25 November 2012 - 05:36 AM

CHRIS BREEN... could you please comment on what our options are if we own a new, mid-2012 Macbook Pro? Apple says Snow Leopard cannot be installed in a partition on mid-2012 computers. Is there a way to use VM ware to emulate older "Mac" computer hardware so Snow Leopard can be installed in a separate partition?