Help Reinstalling OS X after hard drive failure

[zbest56]

So my hard drive in my macbook pro failed with noises beyond anything ive ever found on the internet. It was about time too, its been through 6 years of heavy video editing and music production and the plus that my mac took a couple minutes to start. so i just installed a new drive today(seagate SSHD 1tb) and now am faced with the issue of reinstalling mac os x. This is the only mac in my house, and none of my friends with macs seem to be much help. i dont have a recovery disk since i bought the mac used, and of course the recovery partition is gone. so im pretty much stuck. i managed to make a USB installer that would be detected by the EFI but it gave me the familiar prohibited sign when i tried to boot. this is the most successful ive been so far. right now im so desperate im installing windows right now just to gain back functionality of my laptop. I cannot seem to find a working iso or dmg on the internet so im pretty much at a loss. any help would be great!
thanks in advance.

 

[simon48]

Specs? What OS version do you want to install? How did you make a USB installer without another Mac?

With another (friends?) Mac, reinstalling should be easy if the other computer is around your computers age.

 

[zbest56]

its an old late 08 unibody.
it runs a core 2 duo P8600 @2.4Ghz with 4GB DDR3 @1067Mhz
as far as Graphics is has a PCIe Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT 256MB as the main card and a PCI Nvidia Geforce 9400M GT 256MB as the power saving Card.
i plan to install mavericks, but will install anything between that and Snow Leopard and upgrade to mavericks if i have to. it was running mavericks when it failed.
None of my friends seem to have a mac as old as mine, and the ones that do simply refuse to help me. this is extremely frustrating.
i used transmac and a Mavericks DMG i got from the one person who was willing to help.
thanks for the timely reply

 

[yjchua95]

So my hard drive in my macbook pro failed with noises beyond anything ive ever found on the internet. It was about time too, its been through 6 years of heavy video editing and music production and the plus that my mac took a couple minutes to start. so i just installed a new drive today(seagate SSHD 1tb) and now am faced with the issue of reinstalling mac os x. This is the only mac in my house, and none of my friends with macs seem to be much help. i dont have a recovery disk since i bought the mac used, and of course the recovery partition is gone. so im pretty much stuck. i managed to make a USB installer that would be detected by the EFI but it gave me the familiar prohibited sign when i tried to boot. this is the most successful ive been so far. right now im so desperate im installing windows right now just to gain back functionality of my laptop. I cannot seem to find a working iso or dmg on the internet so im pretty much at a loss. any help would be great!
thanks in advance.

Did you hold down the Option key while booting and select the USB installer?

How did you make the USB installer without another Mac?

The only way to get the installer is to have another Mac (any other Mac) that can run Mavericks. It can also be the new Haswell ones.

On that Mac, just download the Mavericks installer and use DiskMakerX http://liondiskmaker.com

Done.

 

[zbest56]

yes i held option... theres not really another way.
i used transmac to to make the bootable USB. my issue is that i dont have much access to another mac, and everyone who i know has one is unwilling to help. so i really need an option to create an installer from windows, or im pretty much screwed.

 

[Fishrrman]

A suggestion for the future (I realize it doesn't help now).

Get either an external drive or a USB3/SATA docking station (it will be backward-compatible with older versions of USB).

You can download the FREE version of CarbonCopyCloner (version 3.4.7) from here:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html

Use CCC to create a "cloned" backup of your internal drive onto the external. EVERYTHING will be there -- the OS, your accounts, your apps, your data.

If you had had a cloned backup drive when your MacBook drive failed, you could have connected the clone and three minutes later you would be up and running, with an exact copy of your internal drive right in front of you.

Again, I know this doesn't help you now.
Go forth, and learn from your mistakes for the future.

Aside:
There are sources from which you can obtain a copy of OS X, which I cannot mention publicly here. Seek, and ye shall find.

Second Aside:
I would STRONGLY suggest that you DO NOT install Mavericks on a MacBook that old. For an '08 MacBook, either use Snow Leopard (10.6) or Mountain Lion (10.8).

 

[Weaselboy]

yes i held option... theres not really another way.
i used transmac to to make the bootable USB. my issue is that i dont have much access to another mac, and everyone who i know has one is unwilling to help. so i really need an option to create an installer from windows, or im pretty much screwed.

Can you get to one of your friend's Macs that has Mavericks on it?

If you can, this Apple utillity and use it with a 1GB or larger USB key to make yourself a recovery USB key. This is not a OS installer key... it just makes a Mavs recovery key if the system used to make the key has Mavs.

Then you can option key boot to the USB key and format your new drive then install Mavs.

Transmac can't make a Mavs installer, but it can make a Lion to Mt. Lion installer if you have the installer DMG.

Or... I did not see you mention this, but do you happen to have a Time Machine backup of your system? If that was made with Mavs you can option key boot to that and it will take you to a recovery screen.

 

[zbest56]

I back up my files, but not not my programs. I was not awars transmac couldnt make a mavericks installer. Thanks alot to those of you who provided info. Its all good now, I was able to get access to a mac to make the installer.

Fishrrman, why do you not reccomend mavericks on an old mac like mine? With it I get better performance and battery life as opposed to mountain lion.

 

[Weaselboy]

I back up my files, but not not my programs. I was not awars transmac couldnt make a mavericks installer. Thanks alot to those of you who provided info. Its all good now, I was able to get access to a mac to make the installer.

Fishrrman, why do you not reccomend mavericks on an old mac like mine? With it I get better performance and battery life as opposed to mountain lion.

Glad you got it sorted out.

Like you said, Mavericks has much better memory and power management. Assuming you have no incompatible apps, that is the way to go.