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I have an old Mac Mini 1.1, 1.66GHz Core Duo; it's currently running OS10.6.8, and I want to erase the disc and reinstall, so I can give it away.
I have the original installer disc, there is 1GB RAM and 38GB of space on the hard drive, I've repaired permissions etc. but when I boot from installer disc and try to run the installer, I get a message saying "Mac OS X 10.6 cannot be installed on this computer"
Why not?
You need the retail upgrade DVD version of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and not the gray restoration DVD.
If you want prepare the Mac for another user/sale, then you need to perform a clean install of macOS by first partitioning & formatting the whole physical drive before reinstalling macOS. Since the old computers utilize hard drives, you will want to make sure to overwrite the entire drive with zeroes to destroy any of your personal data on the hard drive, otherwise the next user could use a data recovery app to recover some of your data.
You have two options for securely destroying your data. You can enable Filevault and let the encryption process finish which will encrypt the data in your home user folder (Snow Leopard did not have full disk encryption so only the user folder was encrypted), or you can use Disk Utility to erase the drive by writing a single pass of zeroes to the whole drive (this would be found in the Options or Advanced, or Secure Erase button within Disk Utility -- I don't recall exactly since Apple removed this ability many years ago). Performing either option will cause your data to be destroyed (actually the Filevault option may still leave some small traces behind on parts of the drive that are unencrypted and used for temp & cache files).
Here is an article on how to properly prepare a drive for a clean install of macOS 10.6:
https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf
Here is an Apple article on how to prepare a Mac for sale which includes some other things you should do before erasing the drive & reinstalling. Keep in mind this article is catering to more recent versions of macOS, but some of the steps may still apply. The steps to erase the drive within the Apple article can be used, but I always preferred the method in the OWC article. Since Apple no longer allows for a secure erase of a drive, you will need to adjust any instructions to look for the Options button within the partition or erase tab of Disk Utility so you can write zeroes to the drive as well.
What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support
You need the retail upgrade DVD version of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and not the gray restoration DVD.
If you want prepare the Mac for another user/sale, then you need to perform a clean install of macOS by first partitioning & formatting the whole physical drive before reinstalling macOS. Since the old computers utilize hard drives, you will want to make sure to overwrite the entire drive with zeroes to destroy any of your personal data on the hard drive, otherwise the next user could use a data recovery app to recover some of your data.
You have two options for securely destroying your data. You can enable Filevault and let the encryption process finish which will encrypt the data in your home user folder (Snow Leopard did not have full disk encryption so only the user folder was encrypted), or you can use Disk Utility to erase the drive by writing a single pass of zeroes to the whole drive (this would be found in the Options or Advanced, or Secure Erase button within Disk Utility -- I don't recall exactly since Apple removed this ability many years ago). Performing either option will cause your data to be destroyed (actually the Filevault option may still leave some small traces behind on parts of the drive that are unencrypted and used for temp & cache files).
Here is an article on how to properly prepare a drive for a clean install of macOS 10.6:
https://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting/Mac_Formatting_6-10_R3.pdf
Here is an Apple article on how to prepare a Mac for sale which includes some other things you should do before erasing the drive & reinstalling. Keep in mind this article is catering to more recent versions of macOS, but some of the steps may still apply. The steps to erase the drive within the Apple article can be used, but I always preferred the method in the OWC article. Since Apple no longer allows for a secure erase of a drive, you will need to adjust any instructions to look for the Options button within the partition or erase tab of Disk Utility so you can write zeroes to the drive as well.
What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support
The 2006 Mac Mini originally came with a gray 10.4 Tiger install disc set.
To upgrade to 10.6 Snow Leopard, you need a white Snow Leopard upgrade DVD.
Maybe because it is already running 10.6.8 and you are trying to install 10.6 to the same disk?? Have you tried to install to a freshly formatted Mac OS Extended (GUID) external disk?
Cannot install OS10.6.8 on Core Duo Mac Mini 1.1
