Installing Leopard on a new MBP ?

R

r4dius

Registered
Hi,

I just got a new macbook pro,
it comes with snow leopard and i'm having some issues with it,
like some random system or trackpad reactivity problems,
as example, sometimes applications won't open on the first clicks, need to try again.. or the "double tap to drag" long timeout before it releases the "drag".
I've seen the same problems I'm having, discussed on forums and the guys telling that they had no such issues with Leopard,
I'd like to install Leopard (normal retail version but I may try with a macbook version if needed) to try (maybe dual boot if possible) but the dvd is just not booting, when selecting it on the boot menu (keeping alt at startup) the menu locks or something and all I can do is power off the MBP ...,
I tried to run it from OSX where it tells me to restart so that it'll install, but it's the same it won't boot and I get a grey background until I power off :/

Can someone tell if leopard is blocked or something on the new MBP ?

Thanks and merry Xmas :)
 
Don't know if Leopard will work or not, but, personally, I would NEVER install an OS older than the computer was designed for.
 
Generally, any version of Mac OS X older than the one that came with a Mac is impossible to install. Often, this is to prevent specific hardware components from failing because support for them was not included in the previous version.
 
I installed Leopard on a brand-new iMac for a lady who needed some software that runs in Leopard, but not Snow Leopard. This is what I did, as the new iMac will not boot to a Leopard installer disk. I installed a fresh Leopard on an older MacBook, then connected to the new Imac, and used Disk Utility to restore that system to the iMac's internal hard drive. I then reinstalled the current combined Leopard updater on the iMac. It works, but has some video issues, with various artifacts showing on the screen occasionally. The cooling fans don't seem to work when needed, so the system runs warmer than I like. So, a variety of drivers may have issues. There's no way to fix those, because the system with Leopard would not be supported by Apple.
You may very well have similar issues if you try to 'go back' to Leopard.
You may even find out that your issues are not fixed at all, or may even be worse.
Did you make sure that your 10.6 system is fully updated to 10.6.2?

Here's what I would try first:
Boot to your restore DVD, and open Disk Utility (from the Utilities menu), and erase your hard drive. Quit Disk Utility, which will return you to the installer. Follow the directions to restore all your software. When you set up your user again, insert DVD #2 so you can reload the rest of the bundled software, such as the iLife package.
A good reason to do this restore - some factory drives can have a partially corrupted install, with some minor issues with the system such as what you describe. Erasing and restoring from the set of disks that came with your system may take care of those issues. Make sure that you connect to the internet, and recheck for more updates after doing that restore, as you will still need to do those updates again.
 
I always used target mode to do so. So I just set up the new computer in target mode so it shows up as a hard drive, and then install from the older computer. It has always worked great for my MacBook.
 
icemanjc said:
I always used target mode to do so. So I just set up the new computer in target mode so it shows up as a hard drive, and then install from the older computer. It has always worked great for my MacBook.
Click to expand...

I had to do something similar as a work around for an ibook with what I'm pretty sure was a bad ATA controller on the logic board (symptoms including will only cold start, absolutely would not restart after setting internal HD as startup disk from internal or external HD. Also failed to archive & install or clean install). Actually what I did was remove the internal HD, load a system booted from a G5 tower to the ibooks internal HD. Then reinstall the HD in the ibook. After that it was fine, but as mentioned before this was a workaround for a machine that had eaten 2 HDs within 3 months. I would never suggest something like this as a permanent fix and I warned the client this may last 3 years or 3 days before it starts having issues again, but it was something to keep him going until he saved for a new machine.
 
Thanks for the replys guys,

The first thing I did on first startup was updating to 10.6.2
Ok I'll try a fresh snow leopard install before trying the leopard tricks :)
But some stuff I consider a problem, as the long dragging timeout, may actually be normal features in snow leopard :/
 
Well really all you can do right now is just try it out and hope for the best! It's hard to really screw up anything so go for it. If Leopard doesn't work, then it's as simple as reinstalling Snow Leopard. Good Luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top