Hard Drive Crash + Leopard Install

[bm4844]

Hello,

Recently, my Macbook crashed (it's the Seagate hard drive failure/blinking question mark issue). I live in a country with extremely limited access to computer parts and service generally, let alone access to anything Mac. I can order a new hard drive from Australia, and I was considering upgrading to 10.5 at the same time. However, I don't have with me the CDs that came with the Mac, the ones needed to reformat/reset/etc the machine. My (first) question: will the Leopard disk allow me to do everything I need to do to get the machine up and running with a brand new hard drive?

If not, will someone else's Macbook Pro disks do the same thing, or must they be from a Macbook?

Any advice in this regard is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[mad jew]

The Leopard discs will allow you to reformat your drive. However if you do so, you'll lose everything and the discs will only reinstall the system. Even apps that came bundled with your original system (such as iLife) will be lost. Just keep that in mind.

 

[bm4844]

Thanks. Just to be clear: since my old hard drive is a total loss and I will have to start from scratch with a new one anyway, reformatting from the Leopard disc reformat won't actually affect anything, right? I won't lose the bundled software that comes with Leopard, will I?

 

[mad jew]

No, you'll get everything that comes with leopard. However remember that there was software that came on your machine originally but is not included with the operating system This software will not be installed alongside Leopard.

 

[trainguy77]

Yeah just remember iLife etc does NOT come with leopard so you won't be able to get that back.