OS Mountain Lion not compatible with PPC apps

[paalomino]

Two weeks ago I upgraded to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard (what was I thinking!), only to discover that it is not compatible with PPC apps. I returned the OS for a refund, and after visiting the local Apple Genius Bar, downgraded back to Snow Leopard. However, now I am unable to reinstall any of my apps, because Rosetta is gone.

After another visit to the AGB today, I was advised to install Snow Leopard (from my original discs, since the install they did was of a newer version without Rosetta) on my G-Drive, then install all my apps there.

I am not able to access my G-Drive at start-up by simply holding down the Option key. I remember having to toggle between drives when Classic was phased out, so I understand what I'll have to do now that I have opted out of using Mountain Lion.

If someone here knows how to start-up both my MacBook Pro and my G-Drive so that I can do the install on the G-Drive, please let me know. In the meantime I'll keep researching.

Thanks.

 

[desertman]

If you have already OS X 10.6 - without Rosetta - installed on your computer you should be able to install just Rosetta from your original OS X 10.6 DVD onto your internal hard drive: http://support.apple.com/kb/ph6531. See also enclosed screen shot.

I'm kind of wondering why they told you at the Apple store that you need to re-install the complete system - with Rosetta - onto an external hard drive (I assume that with "G-Drive" you mean such an external hard drive).

 

[benwiggy]

In Snow Leopard, if you launch a PPC app, it should automatically ask you if you want to download Rosetta in order to launch the app.

However, Apple transited to Intel CPUs in 2006. Most developers should have released updated software to run on Intel by now.