Just replaced the HDD on my new MBP 13" and am trying to use the restore DVD that came with the MBP to reinstall Snow Leopard. However, when I hold ALT/OPTION on startup and get the option to boot from the MacOS Install DVD, the DVD sounds like it is spinning but I just see the Apple logo and spinning wheel! It stays in this state! Any ideas?
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Cannot install Mac OS!!!
- Thread starter carrollf
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With the restore disc inserted try booting while holding down the "C" key, this tells it to boot from the disc. Since it's a DVD it will take a little longer to boot than an internal hard drive does.
Yeah but not 15 minutes the OP stated, so clearly something is wrong and he should call apple.
Make sure you have any external devices disconnected when you do this, I have had problems in the past like this.
I believe that pretty much any 2.5" SATA hard drive will work in the MacBook Pro. I just Googled here on MacRumors and I found at least 1 person who was using a 1TB Toshiba drive in their MacBook Pro so it shouldn't be a problem.
Are you sure you got the SATA connector seated properly on the new hard drive? Was your optical drive working before you replaced the hard drive? Was your restore disc readable before you replaced the hard drive? What does the MacBook Pro do it you try to boot it without any disc in the optical drive?
Edit: Just thought of one more thing, I noticed you also have an iMac, for the restore disc you're using are you using the one that came with the MacBook Pro and not the iMac one?
Using both restore disks (Mac OS and Applications) that came with the MBP.
One new thing I just did is tested booting with a Win XP DVD and it boots up with no problems. I am now seeing the "Windows is loading files..." message. Can I take it that this means my Mac OS X Restore DVD is corrupt as well as my Applications Restore DVD as both will not boot? Seems strange for both DVDs to have issues doesn't it?
What version of Mac OS X "should" have been on the MBP when I bought it 1 weeks ago? The restore disk is 10.6.3 but I wonder if there is any chance that they gave me an older restore disk to the version of OS X that they put on the machine?? Maybe 10.6.4 came on it - I never checked! A long shot but would explain a few things...
One new thing I just did is tested booting with a Win XP DVD and it boots up with no problems. I am now seeing the "Windows is loading files..." message. Can I take it that this means my Mac OS X Restore DVD is corrupt as well as my Applications Restore DVD as both will not boot? Seems strange for both DVDs to have issues doesn't it?
What version of Mac OS X "should" have been on the MBP when I bought it 1 weeks ago? The restore disk is 10.6.3 but I wonder if there is any chance that they gave me an older restore disk to the version of OS X that they put on the machine?? Maybe 10.6.4 came on it - I never checked! A long shot but would explain a few things...
It should boot with the restore disc. I don't know if the Applications disc is bootable though. It probably came with 10.6.3 as I think that was current at the time of the current MacBook Pro revision. It may have had 10.6.4 on it, but it still should boot with 10.6.3. It's possible the disc is either bad or damaged. Maybe you could try the restore disc again and just leave it for a while and see what happens.
One other interesting thing is that I tried to use MagicISO to make a bootable ISO image of the disk that I could then burn onto a new DVD. However, MagicISO told me that the OS X DVD is non-bootable! Surely it would have to be a bootable disk so either MagicISO is wrong or the DVD has serious problems!!
I'm not familiar with MagicISO, so I had to Google it, looks like it's Windows software correct? I believe that Windows can't read Mac disks, so, that may be all it means.
Curious, if you put the MacBook Pro's restore disc in your iMac can it read it? Can it boot from it?
Anyway sata hdd will work in there. Try have you reset the pram? Might be worth doing it. Then hold C and try and boot from the disk. Make sure there not scratched or have finger marks on them. If u have some compressed air maybe squirt a bit of air in the dvd slot just in case there is stuff on the laser
If worse comes to worst, try this:
If you have an external hard drive or a large flash drive, torrent a copy of Snow Leopard and map it to a 10gb partition. This works just as well as an installation DVD (I had to do this last week to restore my old macbook I was selling, as my parents had our Snow Leopard disk at home).
If you need any help, just shoot me a PM
If you have an external hard drive or a large flash drive, torrent a copy of Snow Leopard and map it to a 10gb partition. This works just as well as an installation DVD (I had to do this last week to restore my old macbook I was selling, as my parents had our Snow Leopard disk at home).
If you need any help, just shoot me a PM