I'm considering buying Snow Leopard Server, however, the person I'm buying it from will be providing me with the server discs that came with his Mac Mini Server and a serial number. If I have an iMac already running Snow Leopard, will I still be able to take the server discs included with the Mini and install server on top? Are the discs compatible with the iMac? Thanks.
MacOS – Install Snow Leopard Server
installmacososx-serversnow leopard
Related Solutions
I've had never any problems with upgrades and never lost any files.
You should make a backup — or better, make a bootable clone of your current hard drive:
- Buy an external hard drive
- Install Snow Leopard on the external drive.
- Reboot into the clean external Snow Leopard drive, migrate over users and apps and run all updates. Run from that external to be sure it's a workable copy of your internal drive.
- Disconnect the external drive and put it on the shelf.
- Reboot back into your regular internal hard drive and proceed with the upgrade to Lion.
- Download Lion and run the installer!
Until you're certain that Lion works perfectly, keep the clone around - several months is usually enough time. If you ever need any files from it, just attach the drive and drag-and-drop them. If something goes really horribly wrong, you can boot into the clone, and then clone it back to the internal drive (you'll lose any changes made since you installed Lion). This second drive is really valuable for when you discover three months down the road that one seldom used piece of software won't work on Lion. You can reboot into Snow Leopard where everything still works and get that one task done. It's a great lifesaver and means you can start using Lion rather than checking that every little thing works perfectly right after the upgrade.
EDIT: Thanks Trombone for editing my broken-english post, but please, never add your own ideas into my post. My solution uses pure apple tools, so why bother with SuperDuper, when you can do it with nice clean install and Migration Assistant.
I never recommend any third-party products when things can be done with default Apple SW. Of course, you can prefer SuperDuper, it is your way - but not mine. Please add another answer explaining how to use SuperDuper or other awesome tools so that people can have a choice. Let's keep this solution needing no additional tools.
Short answer: no.
The i7 in the new 2011 Server model doesn't support anything less than pretty much the original OS.
Sorry dude. I wanted to do the exact same thing.
Related Question
- MacOS – After updating to Lion, can’t re-install Snow Leopard or Lion
- MacOS Snow Leopard – Licensing OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server from Apple
- IMac – How to downgrade a mid-2010 21.5″ iMac from Yosemite to Snow Leopard
- Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8 under Fusion 7.1.3 on Sierra 10.12.2
- Snow Leopard – Unable to Install from Original Disks
- Snow Leopard Clean Install
Best Answer
Unfortunately, the disks that come with a Mac are Mac-specfic. They have special drivers for the machine they came with, and usually don't include drivers for other machines. The serial number he's providing you with should still work with no issues, but the disks themselves will probably not work. I would suggest getting the Snow Leopard Server disks from another source and using the serial number you're buying.
As for installing Server on top of the existing OS, this shouldn't be an issue. I would still recommend having a backup, but it shouldn't erase any data.
Good luck!