How to Download Install Mac Mavericks From 10.6.8 Updated

April 07, 2022 Post a Comment

How to Download Install Mac Mavericks From 10.6.8

[Editor'south note: This commodity is function of our serial of articles on installing and upgrading to Mavericks.]

As I explained in my guide to installing Mavericks, i of the requirements for installing OS 10 ten.9 is that you already have at least Snowfall Leopard (Mac OS 10 10.6) installed. (Specifically, Mavericks requires OS X ten.6.8 or later.) The main applied reason for this requirement is that Mavericks is available only via the Mac App Shop, and the Mac App Store debuted in Mac Bone Ten 10.6—in other words, you need Snowfall Leopard or later merely to exist able to buy and download Mountain King of beasts.

Just once you've got your copy of Mavericks, can you install it onto a Mac or an external bulldoze containing Leopard (Mac Os 10 10.5)?

The license understanding

The software license you agree to when you install Mavericks states that you can "download, install, use and run for personal, not-commercial use, one (1) copy of [the Os] directly on each Apple tree-branded figurer running OS 10 Mount Lion, OS X Lion or OS X Snow Leopard…that you own or control." In other words, if your Mac shipped with Mountain Lion, King of beasts, or Snowfall Leopard, you can install Mavericks. If your Mac shipped with Leopard or Tiger (Mac Os Ten ten.4), but you lot afterwards purchased and installed Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion, you lot can install Mavericks. If your Mac doesn't at least have Snow Leopard installed, you can't install Mavericks.

That seems pretty articulate. But what if, for example, y'all've got a family-pack license for Snow Leopard, and you've got a Mac that shipped with Leopard but that'due south never been upgraded to Snow Leopard, King of beasts, or Mountain Lion? The Mavericks license agreements say that even if that Mac is compatible, you can't upgrade to ten.9 until you lot offset install at least Snowfall Leopard.

This is but one scenario—I can think of a number of situations in which you lot might have Leopard on a Mac or an external drive, along with a valid license for Snowfall Leopard, and y'all'd rather not have the interim step of installing Snow Leopard just to upgrade to Mavericks. Having performed this two-step upgrade many times while researching our various Mavericks-installation articles (and the past two years while writing our upgrade guides for Lion and Mount Lion), I can tell you lot that it'south a existent hassle.

The practical question

But lets take a step back. While the alphabetic character of the constabulary says that you need to install at least Snow Leopard before installing Mavericks, the spirit of the law seems to be that a item Leopard-equipped Mac but needs a license for Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion earlier you tin upgrade information technology. In other words, in our view, you should exist well inside your rights to install Mavericks on whatever of your computers for which you have a valid, current Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain license—even if you don't actually install Snow Leopard starting time.

And then then the question becomes whether there are whatever technical reasons you tin't install Mavericks over Leopard.

Mavericks no Leopard — The Mavericks installer refuses to install onto a drive running Leopard (OS 10 10.v).

In my testing with many Macs, the Mavericks installer, like the Mountain Lion and Lion installers before it, refuses to install onto a bulldoze containing Leopard; in fact, it refuses to install on any drive running a version of Mac OS X below 10.6.eight, merely equally its official arrangement requirements merits. The Mavericks installer will, notwithstanding, install onto a blank drive, and so Mavericks clearly doesn't need whatsoever of Snow Leopard's files or settings.

You may exist thinking, "If information technology volition install onto a blank drive, I'll just copy the installer to my Leopard-equipped Mac, connect an empty drive, install the new Os there, and then use Setup/Migration Assistant to move my files over." Alas, while the Mavericks installer will let you install the Bone onto a blank bulldoze, the installer itself must be run from within Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks.

Then how tin can you install Mountain Panthera leo over Leopard? In that location are three ways: the official manner, the creature-force method, and the quick-but-techie way. Whichever method you cull, you should—every bit with any Os installation—be sure to accept an upwardly-to-date, tested fill-in of your bulldoze before you brainstorm.

Notation that there are actually ii Mavericks-compatible Macs—the Mid 2007 iMac and the Mid/Late 2007 MacBook Pro—that shipped with Tiger [Mac Bone X ten.iv]. If you've got one of these Macs, still running Tiger, and you're determined to upgrade it to Mavericks, the kickoff ii methods below ("The official way" and "The brute-force method") will work; the third method ("The quick-simply-techie mode") will not.

The official way

As I explained above, Apple'southward official policy is that if you want to install Mavericks over Leopard—bold, of course, the Mac in question meets the system requirements—yous must first install Snow Leopard, purchasing information technology for $20 if necessary, and then install Mavericks. This arroyo works fine, it's fairly easy to do (if a bit fourth dimension-consuming), and it gets the Apple seal of approval.

The beast-forcefulness method

What if y'all don't want to install Snow Leopard first, or if you don't take your Snow Leopard disc handy? I'k not beingness coy hither—possibly you've misplaced the disc, or maybe you're on the road and y'all've got your Mac's original (Leopard) disc with you as an emergency boot disc, merely you don't take your Snow Leopard upgrade disc.

As I mentioned above, the Mavericks installer will let you install onto a blank drive as long as the installer itself is run under Snow Leopard, Panthera leo, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks. This ways that as long as you take a good fill-in; a 6GB-or-larger thumb bulldoze or external drive; and either an already-downloaded re-create of the Mavericks installer or access to a Mac running Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, or Mavericks, you lot can perform a bit of installer razzle-dazzle.

Specifically, the procedure involves erasing your Mac's drive, installing Mavericks onto information technology, and and so importing all your data from your backup. (If this sounds a lot similar a clean install, that's because it's essentially the same process.) Here are the steps to accept:

Make sure you have an upwards-to-date backup—either a Time Machine backup or a clone backup using a utility such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner—of your Leopard Mac'south drive. (For this purpose, I recommend a clone.) Be sure to test this backup to verify that information technology has your latest information: In the case of a Time Car backup, try restoring some important data from the backup; in the case of a clone fill-in, boot from the clone to make certain it boots and that it contains all your information.
Utilise the computer running Snow Leopard or later to download the Mountain Lion installer from the Mac App Store. (If you've already got your copy of the Mavericks installer, skip this stride.)
Create a bootable install drive using the instructions for creating a bootable Mavericks install bulldoze.
Boot your Leopard Mac from that new install drive. When you exercise so, yous run across the initial Install Os X screen.
From the Utilities menu at the top of the screen, choose Disk Utility.
Use Disk Utility to erase your Leopard Mac's internal bulldoze. To practise and so, select that drive on the left, click Erase on the right, choose Mac OS Ten Extended (Journaled) from the Format pop-up menu, and click Erase. Warning: This step erases all the information on your Mac's drive, which is why you lot needed that backup!
When the erase procedure is finished, quit Disk Utility to get back to the Install Os X screen.
Click Continue to install Mavericks on your Mac's internal bulldoze.
After your Mac restarts, installation finishes, and you proceed through the setup process, watch for the Transfer Information To This Mac screen. You'll choose either the option to transfer information from a Fourth dimension Machine backup or to transfer data from another startup bulldoze (such every bit a bootable clone backup), depending your backup type. This step transfers all your files from your backup to your new installation of Mavericks.

When the transfer process is finished, y'all'll be able to log in to Mavericks with all your accounts and data intact.

The quick-just-techie way

If you're comfy diving into the Bone and editing a .plist file, this is the fastest style to install Mavericks over Leopard, although, as with the previous method, you lot'll need to be able to boot from a Snow Leopard, Lion, Mount Lion, or Mavericks drive to actually run the installer.

Equally I mentioned above, the Mavericks installer refuses to install over Leopard Mac. But how does the installer know your drive contains Leopard, and not Snow Leopard or later? It turns out that the installer simply checks a particular file—/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist—on the destination disk to bank check the version of OS X currently installed on that disk.

Which means that if your Mac is running Leopard, and you lot're feeling audacious, you can edit the SystemVersion.plist file so that it claims yous're running, say, ten.6.eight. The Mavericks installer—which will nonetheless need to be run on a Mac running Snowfall Leopard or later on—will and then install over Leopard without the slightest complaint. Here'south how to do that:

On your Leopard-equipped Mac (or, if you're trying to update an external difficult drive—including a Mac in Target Deejay Mode—that has Leopard installed, on that drive), navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices.
Using a text editor that lets yous enter an admin-user name and password to edit arrangement-level files—such every bit the non-Mac App Store version of TextWrangler—open up the file called SystemVersion.plist.
Locate the ProductVersion key (not the ProductUserVisibleVersion key). Just beneath that is a cord of numbers indicating the Os version; for example, on a Mac running OS X x.5.8, it will read x.five.eight.
Change that number to ten.6.8, save the file (providing your admin-level username and password when prompted).
If yous modified an external drive, and the Mac you're working on is already booted into Snowfall Leopard or afterwards, you tin launch the Mavericks installer immediately. If you modified your Mac's startup bulldoze, yous'll need to boot your Mac from a drive running Snowfall Leopard or later that also contains the Os X installer. (If you've created a bootable Mavericks install drive, merely boot your Mac from that, and when the Install OS X screen appears, continue until yous can choose your Leopard drive equally the install destination.) Another approach would be to boot your Leopard Mac from an external drive containing Snow Leopard or later, so run the installer from in that location. Withal another option, if you've got two Macs with FireWire or Thunderbolt, is to boot the Leopard Mac into Target Disk Manner and connect information technology to your Snow Leopard or later Mac, and so run the installer.
If you aren't using a bootable Mavericks installer (in other words, if you're booted from a standard drive running Snow Leopard or later), one additional tip: Equally explained in my main article on installing Mavericks, when yous become to the installer screen showing your internal drive, you demand to click the Show All Disks push button to show your Leopard drive, and and so select that drive every bit the install destination.

Whichever approach y'all take, when you're washed, you'll have Mavericks on your previously Leopard Mac.