can i install my mac os on another mac

[cis4life]

Ok, heres the situation

Last christmas I bought a macbook. Recently it was dropped and basically crushed to pieces.

So now I have a friend who just updated his macbook (same one I had) to a mac book pro, and he's willing to sell me his old macbook (the one I had), but he don't / (he lost) the leopard CD that came with the system.

I still have my leopard / os install cd with me, so could I buy his macbook and install my os install cd onto it, or will I have to buy another copy of leopard to put on the macbook?

Thanks,
Cedric

 

[miiles]

The Leopard CD's that come with the computer when you originally purchase them will only work with the computer they came with.

You can purchase a new copy of Leopard from Apple and install that on your friends MacBook.

Sorry to hear about yours being smashed into pieces...

 

[9822737]

Ok, heres the situation

Recently it was dropped and basically crushed to pieces.
Cedric

What did you drop it in? An industrial blender!?

Really? Crushed just from a drop of a few feet?

AnDy

 

[jodelli]

The Leopard CD's that come with the computer when you originally purchase them will only work with the computer they came with.

You can purchase a new copy of Leopard from Apple and install that on your friends MacBook.

Sorry to hear about yours being smashed into pieces...

Did this happen in Leopard? It used to be that discs for the same Mac models were interchangeable.

cis4life
can i install my mac os on another mac
Ok, heres the situation

Last christmas I bought a macbook. Recently it was dropped and basically crushed to pieces.

I take it the HDD is unsalvageable. otherwise you'd just swap it.

You could use target mode.

 

[robbieduncan]

Did this happen in Leopard? It used to be that discs for the same Mac models were interchangeable.

It's been like this since at least Panther. Quite possibly before then. Either way it was against the EULA...

 

[jodelli]

It's been like this since at least Panther. Quite possibly before then. Either way it was against the EULA...

Ok, it's been a while.
But I never kept track of which discs were for which particular slot load iMac, for instance.

The thing is that I no longer own more than one of each particular model at a time, so I was unfamiliar with the change.

 

[cis4life]

well, let me correct myself

It not smashed into little pieces.

It fell from a high counter it was sitting on while open and the screen part is now all jacked up as well as its not working at all really now. (It was on a pretty high counter when it fell)

So basically i will have to purchase a copy of leopard to use on the macbook. oh well, I guess it could be worst.

Thanks,
Cedric

 

[mrwizardno2]

If I were you, I would at least try installing it first to see if it works or not. The way I figure is you already paid for the license to use it once, bundled in the original machine's price. You're now about to purchase a second machine, which someone has also paid licensing for. So really, by using your disc, you're going to save yourself from having paid 3 times for using it on 1 machine. At least that's how I'd look at it.

I know these forums are all about handing over every last penny to the great El Jobso, but there has to come a point when enough is enough. Like I said, try it first. It may work. Who knows. And the CD's aren't locked to the exact computer you got them with, they're locked to the model identifier. So if you buy two Macbooks that are the same model, you can use the same disc on both. Got it?

 

[jackiecanev2]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

also, if you go to an apple store or ring AppleCare, they've been known to replace the restore discs gratis. If not, they charge a small fee (significantly less than a retail copy of leopard). See what they say, after you try your own discs. It doesn't cost you anything to pop them in and find out they don't work.

 

[annk]

If I were you, I would at least try installing it first to see if it works or not. The way I figure is you already paid for the license to use it once, bundled in the original machine's price. You're now about to purchase a second machine, which someone has also paid licensing for. So really, by using your disc, you're going to save yourself from having paid 3 times for using it on 1 machine. At least that's how I'd look at it.

I know these forums are all about handing over every last penny to the great El Jobso, but there has to come a point when enough is enough. Like I said, try it first. It may work. Who knows. And the CD's aren't locked to the exact computer you got them with, they're locked to the model identifier. So if you buy two Macbooks that are the same model, you can use the same disc on both. Got it?

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

also, if you go to an apple store or ring AppleCare, they've been known to replace the restore discs gratis. If not, they charge a small fee (significantly less than a retail copy of leopard). See what they say, after you try your own discs. It doesn't cost you anything to pop them in and find out they don't work.

These are good points. I'm a big supporter of doing all these things legally, but the whole idea behind the EULA is to keep people from using one purchased license on more than one machine, which is completely understandable from the merchant's point of view. You're only going to use your OS on one machine, so you're not cheating Apple in any way. I'd give it a try, or at least do as the second poster quoted above suggested, and call Apple to explain. They're not out to milk you for as much as possible, they just want you to pay for what you use.