How do I intall Mac OS on a bare MacBook Pro?

[woodNfish]

Hi all,

I am new to the forums.

I have a late 2007 macbook pro that I got at the dump. The original HD was gone so I bought a new one and installed it and a charger. Today a friend loaned me Snow Leopard and I tried to install it but got this message:

"Snow Leopard requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later to already be on the system"

Well, there is no OS on the system, no backup, nothing, just the bare drive that I installed. How do I install an OS on a bare system? Do I just need a current OS with an install disk or something? Or do I have to install an earlier OS (which one?) and upgrade to the most current? (Will any version of OS install itself or is an install disk a separate disk?)

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Drew017]

You should be able to install on a blank HD… did you try to upgrade, or do a clean install?

 

[woodNfish]

There is nothing to upgrade

This computer did not have a hard drive and it did not come with any install disks or backup. I bought a new HD and installed it. I bought a charger and the battery is fine. A coworker loaned me his startup disks this morning, but a message came up saying "this computer cannot install OS X".

I was bale to get this from the profiler, but there is no disk utility to let me format the HD and clicking on the disk utility line in "Applications" has no effect:

Model name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBook Pro3.1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
L2 Cache: 4MB
Memory: 2GB
Bus Speed 800MHz
Boot Rom Version: MBP31.0070.807
SMC Version: 1.16f11
Serial Number: W881001PX92

2 bays of 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
667 MHz

 

[Drew017]

This computer did not have a hard drive and it did not come with any install disks or backup. I bought a new HD and installed it. I bought a charger and the battery is fine. A coworker loaned me his startup disks this morning, but a message came up saying "this computer cannot install OS X".

I was bale to get this from the profiler, but there is no disk utility to let me format the HD and clicking on the disk utility line in "Applications" has no effect:

Model name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBook Pro3.1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
L2 Cache: 4MB
Memory: 2GB
Bus Speed 800MHz
Boot Rom Version: MBP31.0070.807
SMC Version: 1.16f11
Serial Number: W881001PX92

2 bays of 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
667 MHz

Have you formatted the HD? It needs to be OS X Extended (Journaled). You can use your Snow Leopard disk to format you HD by using Disk Utility.

 

[chown33]

... A coworker loaned me his startup disks this morning, but a message came up saying "this computer cannot install OS X".

Would those discs happen to be gray? Or is there a picture of a snow leopard on it?

If the discs are gray, then they are specific to the model of whatever computer your coworker has. They will not work on any other model. Read all the text (even the fine print) on the disc, and it should identify the exact model the discs are intended for.

The retail all-model version of Snow Leopard comes in a box, with one disc, and the disc as a snow leopard picture on it.