Cannot install Snow Leopard on a certain HD

aliyajade · Oct 14, 2016

Hello,
I really hope you can help a newbie!
I have two internal hard drives on my ancient Mac pro 2008.
One I want to keep with Yosemite, but the other I want to reinstall Snow Leopard on, so i can run FCP 7 without the problems I have running it with Yosemite.

I have erased the drive, so there is nothing on it at all and it is formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but when I run the install disc for Snow Leopard, I cannot see the drive to install it onto.

When I boot up with the alt key and got to recovery-I can see the drive in Disk Utility, but it is greyed out when I try to partition it. Please see photo.
I can erase it again, but that is all I can do to it.
I think I need to add a partition for the computer to see it when I try and install the Snow Leopard install disc?

Can anyone suggest how I can install the Snow Leopard OS onto this drive as I am stumped! Many thanks

Mr_Brightside_@ · Oct 14, 2016

Can you upload a higher res pic?

aliyajade · Oct 14, 2016

There you go-sorry!

Mr_Brightside_@ · Oct 14, 2016

I don't see anything

aliyajade · Oct 14, 2016

It's in the original post-here it again
thanks

Mr_Brightside_@ · Oct 14, 2016

What's the target drive?

aliyajade · Oct 14, 2016

Is that the start up drive?
[doublepost=1476462610][/doublepost]Sorry=being really thick-the drive I want to install Snow Leopard onto is Highflyer A
thanks!

Mr_Brightside_@ · Oct 14, 2016

In this picture, what are you booting off?

aliyajade · Oct 14, 2016

Mr_Brightside_@ said:
In this picture, what are you booting off?

When I boot up holding alt- it comes up as the recovery drive. It's us called
'Recovery'

satcomer · Oct 14, 2016

Maybe since the recovery partition resides on the Startup drive maybe you could use the CD or put it on a USB2 drive and boot from that to repartition the startup drive and then reinstall OS X after the partition!

aliyajade · Oct 15, 2016

satcomer said:
Maybe since the recovery partition resides on the Startup[ drive maybe you could use the CD or put it on a USB2 drive and boot from that to repartition the startup drive and then reinstall OS X after the partition!

Thanks.
I have tried that- booting from the start up disc and an external drive- disk utility always sees Highflyer A but won't let me partition it.
Any ideas?thanks so much

Fishrrman · Oct 15, 2016

OP -

My suggestions:

First, shut down, power EVERYTHING off.

Next, DISCONNECT all those non-essential drives that I see in your pic of Disk Utility.

The ONLY DRIVES you want connected are the target drive and the DVD from which you'll be installing.

I see you're on a Mac Pro.
You MAY have to open it up and pull some cables.
Once all the non-essential drives are disconnected, close up.

Now, boot from the install DVD.
a. press power on button
b. hold down option key until startup manager appears
c. select install DVD, hit return.

When you get to the installer....

FIRST, you want to re-initialize the target drive using the copy of Disk Utility that comes on the DVD (with the installer).

NOW try doing the OS install.

Try exactly what I've proposed, and get back to us.
Any better?

aliyajade · Oct 17, 2016

Fishrrman said:
OP -

My suggestions:

First, shut down, power EVERYTHING off.

Next, DISCONNECT all those non-essential drives that I see in your pic of Disk Utility.

The ONLY DRIVES you want connected are the target drive and the DVD from which you'll be installing.

I see you're on a Mac Pro.
You MAY have to open it up and pull some cables.
Once all the non-essential drives are disconnected, close up.

Now, boot from the install DVD.
a. press power on button
b. hold down option key until startup manager appears
c. select install DVD, hit return.

When you get to the installer....

FIRST, you want to re-initialize the target drive using the copy of Disk Utility that comes on the DVD (with the installer).

NOW try doing the OS install.

Try exactly what I've proposed, and get back to us.
Any better?

Thank you
ok-I have turned everything off, disconnected all the external drives-I tool the side off-

I cannot see anything else to disconnect.
I booted up off the install disc-went to disk utility, but I still cannot do anything to the other drive-now it is 4.5TB Untitled-I can see the raids, but not sure if that makes any difference?

I also went to Startup Disk on Utilities and it doesn't see the drive there either.

Sorry to seems thick-am I missing something? thanks so much

Mr_Brightside_@ · Oct 17, 2016

Where did high flyer go? I think it's because the 4.5 is a RAID array - so you may have to install on a RAID slice depending on the setting?

aliyajade · Oct 17, 2016

Mr_Brightside_@ said:
Where did high flyer go? I think it's because the 4.5 is a RAID array - so you may have to install on a RAID slice depending on the setting?

That's what I see when I boot from the Snow Leopard disk. When I boot up
From the recovery drive- as it calls itself- I can see it called Highflyer A?!?!?

aliyajade · Oct 18, 2016

When I boot up holding down alt, this is what I get

Then if I go to Recovery 10.10.5 and then disk utility, I can see this

So here I can still see Highflyer A, but cannot do anything to it-partition is greyed out still.

Any suggestions would be so welcome.
Thanks so much

Bruno09 · Oct 19, 2016

Hi,

You have a Core Storage on HighFlyer A disk.

You won't be able to install Snow Leopard on it because SL can't "see" a Core Storage volume.

To install SL on it you'll need to get rid of the Core Storage first.

Please launch the Terminal and post the output of :

diskutil list

Then :

diskutil cs list

You can copy and paste the results from the Terminal window.

aliyajade · Oct 19, 2016

Bruno09 said:
Hi,

You have a Core Storage on HighFlyer A disk.

You won't be able to install Snow Leopard on it because SL can't "see" a Core Storage volume.

To install SL on it you'll need to get rid of the Core Storage first.

Please launch the Terminal and post the output of :

diskutil list

Then :

diskutil cs list

You can copy and paste the results from the Terminal window.

Thank you so much.
Here it is:

Code:

Last login: Tue Oct 18 14:12:36 on console

aliya-al-hassans-mac-pro:~ Aliya$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk0

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:                  Apple_HFS Internal Hard drive     3.0 TB     disk0s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.5 TB     disk1

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1

   2:                 Apple_RAID                         1.5 TB     disk1s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OSX                134.2 MB   disk1s3

/dev/disk2

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.5 TB     disk2

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1

   2:                 Apple_RAID                         1.5 TB     disk2s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OSX                134.2 MB   disk2s3

/dev/disk3

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.5 TB     disk3

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1

   2:                 Apple_RAID                         1.5 TB     disk3s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OSX                134.2 MB   disk3s3

/dev/disk4

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:          Apple_CoreStorage                        *4.5 TB     disk4

/dev/disk5

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:                  Apple_HFS Highflyer A            *4.5 TB     disk5

                                Logical Volume on disk4

                                0F37887F-97D6-4507-BC33-D8E1DF531D63

                                Unencrypted

/dev/disk6

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *7.8 GB     disk6

   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk6s1

   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         1.0 GB     disk6s2

   3:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install DVD    6.7 GB     disk6s3

aliya-al-hassans-mac-pro:~ Aliya$ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group B186B633-7694-4FF6-B82D-5F17AF82713C

    =========================================================

    Name:         Highflyer A

    Status:       Online

    Size:         4499873759232 B (4.5 TB)

    Free Space:   6320128 B (6.3 MB)

    |

    +-< Physical Volume DF91AB23-940A-499F-A430-D91BB9E824C4

    |   ----------------------------------------------------

    |   Index:    0

    |   Disk:     disk4

    |   Status:   Online

    |   Size:     4499873759232 B (4.5 TB)

    |

    +-> Logical Volume Family 2593927B-C592-4C71-9BDD-412CAFAAAF72

        ----------------------------------------------------------

        Encryption Status:       Unlocked

        Encryption Type:         None

        Conversion Status:       NoConversion

        Conversion Direction:    -none-

        Has Encrypted Extents:   No

        Fully Secure:            No

        Passphrase Required:     No

        |

        +-> Logical Volume 0F37887F-97D6-4507-BC33-D8E1DF531D63

            ---------------------------------------------------

            Disk:                  disk5

            Status:                Online

            Size (Total):          4499515113472 B (4.5 TB)

            Conversion Progress:   -none-

            Revertible:            No

            LV Name:               Highflyer A

            Volume Name:           Highflyer A

            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

aliya-al-hassans-mac-pro:~ Aliya$

Fishrrman · Oct 19, 2016

OP:

If you have ANOTHER Mac available to you, you might consider taking the drive OUT OF the Mac Pro, putting it into an external enclosure (for the time being), taking it to the other Mac, and try to install the OS that way...

aliyajade · Oct 19, 2016

I don't have another mac....
is there any other way I can do it?
Thanks so much

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