Did you just get a beautiful, new MacBook Air? Apple’s new notebooks are super-slim, and they work great with OS X Lion.
However, installing Snow Leopard on a 2011 MacBook Air may not go over so well, as Apple’s older cat doesn’t apparently play nice with its newest notebook. Luckily, Apple has published a KnowledgeBase article to help you fix Snow Leopard on your brand new MacBook Air.
Installing OS X Snow Leopard on a 2011 MacBook Air could result in the following issues:
- The computer begins to start up normally to a gray screen with the Apple logo, then switches to display a progress indicator (a spinning gear) for a few seconds. Then the built-in display changes to black and the LCD backlight remains lit. This symptom usually appears when you attempt to start up with a version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or earlier.
- A prohibitory sign (a circle with a line through it) appears on the screen. The computer then powers off after about a minute. This may occur if you install a version of Lion other than the version originally installed on your MacBook Air.
If you have one of these problems on your 2011 Air running Snow Leopard, try these steps:
Reinstall the proper operating system build by restarting the computer while pressing and holding the Command and “R” keys. The right revision of Mac OS X for this computer should be available for installation through the Mac OS X Utilities pane that opens.
You can verify if the wrong version of Lion is installed (as in the second symptom) by starting the computer in verbose mode:
- Shut down the computer.
- Restart the computer while you press and hold the Command and “V” keys.
- The text on the display should say, “This version of Mac OS X is not supported on this platform!”.
Exit verbose mode by pressing and holding the power button until the computer shuts down.
Obviously, it’s recommended that you have OS X Lion running on a new MacBook Air for the best experience. It’s available for $30 in the Mac App Store.
You can view and rate Apple’s KnowledgeBase article on this topic here.
Update: Readers have noted that Apple’s article provides information on installing OS X Lion, not fixing Snow Leopard. We apologize for the confusion.
[via MacTrast]