Reverting back to snow leopard from mountain lion

Diggerdunne

i just bought a mac air and as a result am giving my mac pro to a family member.... i upgraded to mountain lion for €15 but i want to put the laptop back to its original spec for license and security reasons... i have original grey disks etc and have tried to boot from them but no joy, have googled the problem but can't find a solution that works....
Anyone here know how to revert back to 10.6... its a 2009 mac pro

Cheers...

Sad Professor

With the install disc inserted hold c as the machine boots up. You'll have to do a clean install, i.e. wipe the hard disk.

Diggerdunne

have tried that but it doesnt work....
The Os has a circle and a line thru it when i look at the cd in finder as if its not available for some reason....its the original disk that came with the laptop...

Liameter

With the install disc inserted hold c as the machine boots up. From the menu bar, choose Erase. Then do the installation.

Diggerdunne

i dont get that far to do an erase....
When i put in the disk it just tries to boot for about 5 mins and then just stops and i turn it back on normally and it just boots from hard drive...

indough

have you tried waiting longer than 5 mins?

Diggerdunne

yeah have left it for about 15mins... after about 5 mins it stops reading the disk and then about 2 mins later it starts reading it again for a few mins and then stops again and then just acts like its a sleep...

indough

if you have a large enough usb stick you could try installing by usb

Diggerdunne

i try copying it to usb but it only takes the application file of 4 megs as opposed to the 6.5gig that the file is...
Any other suggestions?

Liameter

If you are really holding the C key then I can only conclude that you have the wrong installer disc or the disc is damaged.

Diggerdunne

well its the installer disk that came with the mac as its the only mac i have that has a disk OS... Maybe the disk is damaged but i took it out of the packet for the first time the other day as have never had a need for it before...
What are my options now????

Liameter

If you really must install OS10.6 you'll have to buy or borrow a "generic" Snow Leopard installation disc.

Diggerdunne

ok thanx for your help.....

unseenfootage

To copy a file of more than 4gb you need to format the usb stick as ntfs.

indough

to install via usb you need to create a bootable image on the disk using disk utility, you cant just copy files across. there are tutorials online, heres one

http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html

you need to be careful if you try this method though

Diggerdunne

indough wrote: »

to install via usb you need to create a bootable image on the disk using disk utility, you cant just copy files across. there are tutorials online, heres one

http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html

you need to be careful if you try this method though

Ok i'll try this and let you know

Thanx

Diggerdunne

tried it from USb and its the same result as from the CD....:(:(

indough

is mountain lion working perfectly now? i would try repairing disk permissions before trying again by usb

Diggerdunne

i dont think its goin to work from the usb or the disk for some reason unknown to me....

indough

well it can take a long time to boot from either source depending on hardware but it should load faster using the usb method. i suppose you have tried leaving it run for ages though? and making sure you hold down the c key for a few mins as you reboot it

if this doesnt work then you must have faulty hardware or something but then your existing installation shouldnt be working

Diggerdunne

the laptop is running fine as far as i can see.... I'm not usin it as i'm usin my mac air now but it is booting and the internet is working and all apps open fine.... Its got me this one.....