mac mini... need some help

Smudge · 3 Sep 2010 at 15:24

Hi all,

I wonder if someone can help me, im pulling my hair out here.

I have a mac mini, purchased in 2009, its core2duo one & came with osx 10.5.4

I then upgraded it to snow leopard at a later date and all was good.

Now comes the problems

I hadnt used it in a while so I decided I would do a fresh install. I rebooted it off the snow leopard DVD and all was looking good for a while, then it appeared it had frozen, so I restarted it.

So, I start the process again, but then it tells me I cant install the upgrade because I needed at least 10.5.x OSX installed, I only get an option to restore from a backup or restart.

I then decide i'd better dig out the original disks, only to find that they have been damaged beyond use (left in the sun on the windowseal & gone all brown)

So now I apear to be stuffed as I cant use the snow leopard upgrade disk and cant use my original disks that came with the mac.

I cant seem to purchase anything off the apple store either to dig myself out of this hole?

Anyone have any suggestions?

Cheers,
Matt.

edwardcasbon1 · 3 Sep 2010 at 16:55

Buy the snow leopard install disk? I think it's only about £60.

VaderDSL · 3 Sep 2010 at 19:19

Could always try calling Applecare, giving your serial number and hoping they can provide you with new install disks?

Or as above buy the Snow leopard copy, it;s £25 over here. Not sure what cost in Denmark would be though.

Smudge · 3 Sep 2010 at 20:21

Thanks for the replies.

I have a snow leopard upgrade disk here, if I order another from apple will it still require my mac mini to have an existing, working copy of osx running to upgrade?

Is there such a thing as a full copy of snow leopard, rather than an upgrade?

MagicBoy · 3 Sep 2010 at 20:29

You should be able to install Snow Leopard without an previous OS installed. Technically you need 10.5 for the license to be valid, but you're covered for that.

Try removing any existing partitions on the hard drive then create a new one and try to install Snow Leopard again. You can do this from the Utilities menu after booting from the Snow Leopard DVD.

Is it an Intel or Nvidia graphics Mac mini?