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MP 1,1-5,1 What version of Snow Leopard do I need? Struggling to install

T

twotone

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 9, 2024
29
3
Hi folks,

I have an early 2009 Mac Pro, that's been upgraded to 5,1 by it's original owner, and fitted with Westmere X5650 6 Core Dual Processors (2.66), along with 32gb Ram and a Radeon HD 5770 1GB GPU. I'm unsure if these processors were fitted by the previous owner and the firmware upgraded or if it came like it, but as it shows as an Early 2009 I assume it was done retrospectively.

It has High Sierra installed on a primary HDD (APFS) and 3 separate SSDs (Mac OS Journaled). I've partitioned one of the SSDs with a 100GB section to install Snow Leopard on so I can have a dual boot arrangement.

Based on what I've read on various posts, I need a 10.6.4 image so I've downloaded a 10.6.4 Mac Pro image (.toast file which I've converted to DMG in Disk Utility) and using Balena Etcher on my M1 Mini, I've made a bootable USB (like i've done with Snow Leopard for my previous iMac).

I booted it with option key held down and it gave me the option to boot from the USB but it went from a spinning progress wheel with the apple logo to the greyed out 'no entry' sign about 30 seconds later.

Am I using the correct image first off? if not, what should I be using? I do not believe this image is any different to the disc it would have come with originally assuming it was 10.6.4. I'm downloading a variety of different versions including a 10.6 retail disk to try but I'm just wondering if I'm missing something!

Any help is super appreciated.

Thanks
 
The 10.6.4 they came with could very well be a special build. Try a later version.

Edit: 10.6.4 public release was 10F569. The 5.1 came with 10F2521, so you likely need a later build.
 
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T'hain Esh Kelch said:
The 10.6.4 they came with could very well be a special build. Try a later version.

Edit: 10.6.4 public release was 10F569. The 5.1 came with 10F2521, so you likely need a later build.
Click to expand...
Thanks - the version I downloaded was supposedly the Mac Pro version but I assume that my issue points towards it not being the right version.

I'm trying to track that version down, but I've also found discs on ebay and/or a pre-installed 10.6.8 1TB HDD that I may also explore if I draw a blank.
 
twotone said:
The version was supposedly the Mac Pro version but appears to not be the right version.
I'm trying to track that version down.
Click to expand...

Unlike units such as the MP31, the retail Snow Leopard Install DVD does not work on MP51 apparently.
@startergo put an Install DVD image for MP51 online:
forums.macrumors.com

Snow leopard on Mac Pro 5,1?

Uploaded Applications Install DVD image to archive.org.
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
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Dayo said:
Unlike units such as the MP31, the retail Snow Leopard Install DVD does not work on MP51 apparently.
@startergo put an Install DVD image for MP51 online:
forums.macrumors.com

Snow leopard on Mac Pro 5,1?

Uploaded Applications Install DVD image to archive.org.
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
Thanks for this - I've tried all of the versions on Archive but will give this a shot and report back. My backup plan is just buying a HDD with it installed off ebay for £20.

Annoyingly, I have a 2007 Macbook that is old and faulty and thought I still had 10.6.8 on there, so I pulled the HDD, installed it in my Mac Pro and booted - turns out past me decided to upgrade the OS to Lion :(
 
startergo said:
Try the DVD instead of the USB boot.
Click to expand...
I'll see if I can find some dual layer DVDs cheap locally, thanks

EDIT - discs order and recovery file downloading - will keep you posted.
 
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If you have any older than 2009ish Intel Mac, you can use any Snow Leopard DVDs, like the ominpresent 10.6.3 upgrade DVD that Apple sent to anyone that had a MobileMe subscription.

Just install whatever Snow Leopard version with your older Mac, fully update it and after all the updates you should have 10.6.8, which will happily run with any cross-flashed early-2009, mid-2010 or mid-2012 Mac Pro.

Cross-flashed early-2009s are considered mid-2010, from the point of view of software installation.
 
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tsialex said:
If you have any older than 2009ish Intel Mac, you can use any Snow Leopard DVDs, like the ominpresent 10.6.3 upgrade DVD that Apple sent to anyone that had a MobileMe subscription.

Just install whatever Snow Leopard version with your older Mac, fully update it and after all the updates you should have 10.6.8, which will happily run with any cross-flashed early-2009, mid-2010 or mid-2012 Mac Pro.

Cross-flashed early-2009s are considered mid-2010, from the point of view of software installation.
Click to expand...

Thanks Alex,

I unfortunately don't have anything working sadly, but if this doesn't work with the DVD I'm just going to buy a pre-installed 10.6.8 HDD off ebay.
 
twotone said:
Thanks Alex,

I unfortunately don't have anything working sadly, but if this doesn't work with the DVD I'm just going to buy a pre-installed 10.6.8 HDD off ebay.
Click to expand...

Not for non-techies, but another possibility is to use a virtualization tool like Fusion and install Snow Leopard Server 10.6.3 from Apple Developer Center to a raw disk, like we did before OpenCore were a thing, to install Catalina:

forums.macrumors.com

Obsolete, Use OpenCore instead | What you need to do to make Catalina work with MacPro5,1

1) Find the deviceID of your diskXX, you will need to use the correct one every time diskXX appears here: diskutil list 2) Erase the SATA drive, diskXX: sudo diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskXX 1 MBR "Free Space" "%noformat%" 100% 3) Make the RAWDisk, diskXX: /Applications/VMware\...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

After you fully update to 10.6.8, you can boot the raw disk native.
 
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SL unfortunately refuses to load in Virtualization software unless it is a server edition. At least on the latest virtualizers. I’ve been monkeying with it for the last week. Parallels and the server SL is the only way I could virtualize it. Fusion and server should work too. In Windows it does not like my CPU and refuses to boot. I need to change the CPUID to penryn, but I am not sure what should I set the CPUID to.
 
startergo said:
SL unfortunately refuses to load in Virtualization software unless it is a server edition. At least on the latest virtualizers. I’ve been monkeying with it for the last week. Parallels and the server SL is the only way I could virtualize it. Fusion and server should work too. In Windows it does not like my CPU and refuses to boot. I need to change the CPUID to penryn, but I am not sure what should I set the CPUID to.
Click to expand...

Yes, you are correct, to install it via Fusion we need 10.6.3 Server image from Apple Developer Center.

Sorry, completely forgot to write that, edited my previous post.
 
It may be able to boot in kvm-osx. Windows 11 with WSL2 can provide nested virtualization aka KVM feature to the WSL Linux which can install SNow Leopard with near native performance. Of course Linux host would provide KVM natively as well.

github.com

GitHub - royalgraphx/LegacyOSXKVM: Run Legacy Mac OS X (10-10.12) on QEMU

Run Legacy Mac OS X (10-10.12) on QEMU. Contribute to royalgraphx/LegacyOSXKVM development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

how to create mac os x 10.6 snow leopard virtual machine in utm | xadammr.au

xadammr.au xadammr.au
 
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