New iMac: Can I run Snow Leopard in another partition?

[rabsparks]

My wife just got her new iMac complete with ML installed. She'd like to partition the hard drive such that it will be possible for her to boot up Snow Leopard since she has several apps that will work with SL, but not ML.

I'm getting mixed results about running SL in an another partition. I would appreciate any feedback. She does have an external drive which she has been using for Time Capsule backups.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will not run on any 2012 and 2013 Mac as native OS installation, since it lacks the appropriate drivers for that hardware.
One can however try to run it as Virtual Machine in Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion or maybe even VirtualBox.

 

[pdjudd]

One can however try to run it as Virtual Machine in Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion or maybe even VirtualBox.

Unless you possess OSX Snow Leopard Server, none of these products will allow you to run SL without major modifications to create the image.

It is also against Apple’s SLA.

 

[rabsparks]

That's pretty much unanimous

It's going back unopened, and we'll find an older iMac with SL.

Thanks for the assist.

 

[gslrider]

It's going back unopened, and we'll find an older iMac with SL.

Thanks for the assist.

You should be able to install SL on any iMac, including the latest one. I'm guessing the one you bought had ML installed in it already? You'll first have to create 2 partitions, one for ML, and one for SL. By doing this you will be required to reformat your whole drive. So back it up your files first. My suggestion is to make a USB boot drive of ML, and boot from that. Before installing, go to the Disk Utility section from the Finder menu bar. Select Partition. Select 2 partitions (your choice in how much space you want to allocate for each). Once your drive is partitioned, proceed to the ML install into the first partition. After the install is complete, your system should restart.

Now insert your bootable disc or usb that contains SL, and boot from that. When asked which drive you want it installed to, choose the second partition you made (will come up as another drive). Let it install. Reboot when done. You should now have to separate drives/partition in which you can boot from in System Preferences/Startup Disk.

The drivers you require for each OS will be installed by each OS. ;-) Hopefully you didn't return your newer iMac for an older one.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

You should be able to install SL on any iMac, including the latest one. I'm guessing the one you bought had ML installed in it already? You'll first have to create 2 partitions, one for ML, and one for SL. By doing this you will be required to reformat your whole drive. So back it up your files first. My suggestion is to make a USB boot drive of ML, and boot from that. Before installing, go to the Disk Utility section from the Finder menu bar. Select Partition. Select 2 partitions (your choice in how much space you want to allocate for each). Once your drive is partitioned, proceed to the ML install into the first partition. After the install is complete, your system should restart.

Now insert your bootable disc or usb that contains SL, and boot from that. When asked which drive you want it installed to, choose the second partition you made (will come up as another drive). Let it install. Reboot when done. You should now have to separate drives/partition in which you can boot from in System Preferences/Startup Disk.

The drivers you require for each OS will be installed by each OS. ;-) Hopefully you didn't return your newer iMac for an older one.

How do you come to this idea? If that were so, any 2012 or 2013 Mac would run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard easily, and I would be glad to do so, but Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard does not contain drivers for post 2011 Mac hardware, especially the CPU and GPU and other smaller parts of the logic board.

 

[Fishrrman]

If you install some kind of "virtual machine" you can run Snow Leopard Server in virtual mode.

Folks do this so they can continue to run older PowerPC-based software under Rosetta...

 

[gslrider]

How do you come to this idea? If that were so, any 2012 or 2013 Mac would run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard easily, and I would be glad to do so, but Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard does not contain drivers for post 2011 Mac hardware, especially the CPU and GPU and other smaller parts of the logic board.

I installed SL on a friend's iMac. I may be wrong, but I remember him saying he bought it around Oct. 2012. From what I've read (after you mentioned about reverting back to older SL from ML on 2012 and newer Macs), Apple tech site doesn't mention it won't run. But it may cause issues. And they don't recommend it. I'll have to get his model identifier to confirm.