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How to install Snow Leopard with a broken optical drive in MBP???

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Blazer5913

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 20, 2004
386
14
So my optical drive in my MBP will read single layer DVDs but not dual layers. I am currently running 10.5 and my end goal is to have 10.6 (snow leopard) on my MBP with a clean install. Problem is, my purchased copy of 10.6 can't be read by my MBP. Here is my thought process:

1st Option: Use the Remote Install OSX application to use another drive on my network. So I boot up the program on other macs in my house, restart my MBP while holding down the option key. Yet, my airport network never shows up on the white apple loading screen (just Macintosh HD). So I can't get the remote drive stuff to work.

2nd Option: Use an external HDD. Problem is is that I didn't know you have to have a blank partition for this. I have a 1TB WD External HDD with 18gigs free, but in order to make a partition, I would have to erase the drive first (am I correct on this?) I can't lose this data, and I don't have another external HDD. So is my only other HDD option to buy like a USB 16gig thumb drive (or really really cheap external), partition it with snow leopard dmg on it, and install with that?

Hopefully somebody can help me with this problem. Thank you
 
If your HDD has 18 gigs free, it shouldn't need to be formatted before you partition.

You partition the free space off and afterwards format the new partition to HFS+ and put SL on it.
 
yeah, either use your external or buy a flash drive (could use 8GB). try partitioning your external using Disk Utility, if its formatted as HFS+ you can partition without loss of data.

but then you would need to use another computer to restore the DVD to your HFS+ drive. if you have another Mac use Restore in Disk Utility. if you have a Windows PC make an iso from the DVD and then restore that image to your drive using your Mac.
 
Thanks so much for the replies. So I already have the .dmg of the Snow Leopard (installer), as well as the physical disc itself. I don't know all that much as far as HDD's are concerned, so when you say partition the remaining space, and then format it to HFS+ in order to put SL on it, can you just elaborate a bit? In Disc Utility, I click my WD My Book, then Partition. By default, it says Volume Scheme: Current (it's just a single box, with "My Book".) But I am not sure what to change ect. Do I select Volume Scheme 1 partition, 2 partition? If the disc image is a bit above 8gigs, I am thinking about making the partition 10 to be safe. Then, format: Mac OS Extended Journaled? And in Options tab, I need to change to GUID right? Sorry for the lack of knowledge here, any help appreciated.
 
you know he legally owns it, so theoretically he could just download it off bittorrent. - legally
 
Use the remote install application if you have access to another optical drive.

Works fine for me for macbookair and macminiserver.

The initial setup is slow so get a newspaper and an drink to pass the time
 
aicul said:
Use the remote install application if you have access to another optical drive.

Works fine for me for macbookair and macminiserver.

The initial setup is slow so get a newspaper and an drink to pass the time
Click to expand...

I would LOVE to do this; however, I keep running into errors when trying it. Well not really errors, but just the drive not showing up. I have a Mac Mini and MBP as secondary Macs I can use with this, each of them running Snow Leopard. I am on my MBP running Leopard, but still have Remote OSX Install application. When I restart my MBP and hold down the option key, the "boot" screen comes up (white background), but I only see a hard drive as my only available option, when it says I should see my Airport network. yes to all the easy fixes, like we are both on the same network, blah blah. But any other possibilities why this won't work? Thanks guys Really want/need SL on my MBP. I have needed a clean install for forever, especially now with iLife 11 just sitting around!
 
Blazer5913 said:
I would LOVE to do this; however, I keep running into errors when trying it. Well not really errors, but just the drive not showing up. I have a Mac Mini and MBP as secondary Macs I can use with this, each of them running Snow Leopard. I am on my MBP running Leopard, but still have Remote OSX Install application. When I restart my MBP and hold down the option key, the "boot" screen comes up (white background), but I only see a hard drive as my only available option, when it says I should see my Airport network. yes to all the easy fixes, like we are both on the same network, blah blah. But any other possibilities why this won't work? Thanks guys Really want/need SL on my MBP. I have needed a clean install for forever, especially now with iLife 11 just sitting around!
Click to expand...

I have the same issue. Holding down OPTION doesn't do it for me. Granted, my copy of snow leopard is in .CDR form but it worked with Leopard just fine. I am a little lost.

I have sympathy with you wanting a clean install. My mac, which has an SSD, began to run slow and it woke it up but I want 10.6 on it. Enough of this leopard stuff already. :D

Good Luck
 
Hmm. Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, and am missing something in this thread, but why don't you try putting the SL DVD in one of your machines that has a working DVD drive, attaching that machine to your MBP via a firewire cable, starting the working-drive machine into target disk mode, and going from there?

I remember trying that once, and it worked. I didn't do the install, because I just wanted to see whether I could "see" the DVD drive on the other machine.

I just tried it again, to make sure -- Mac Pro running, booted MBP into TD mode (by holding down the T key while booting it), no problem seeing the DVD drive on the MBP.

True, you have to have a FW cable. But they are everywhere.
 
monokakata said:
Hmm. Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, and am missing something in this thread, but why don't you try putting the SL DVD in one of your machines that has a working DVD drive, attaching that machine to your MBP via a firewire cable, starting the working-drive machine into target disk mode, and going from there?

I remember trying that once, and it worked. I didn't do the install, because I just wanted to see whether I could "see" the DVD drive on the other machine.

I just tried it again, to make sure -- Mac Pro running, booted MBP into TD mode (by holding down the T key while booting it), no problem seeing the DVD drive on the MBP.

True, you have to have a FW cable. But they are everywhere.
Click to expand...

Wow, I've never heard of this option before, granted I have heard of connection two Macs via Firewire for quick transfers (just not use of the DVD drive). That sounds like it would be worth a try. Unfortunately I don't have a handy Firewire 800 to Firewire 800 cable, just one for my external HDD with only one "Firewire 800" end, or the male/female connection. Anyways I'll head to monoprice and order one, as I need an HDMI cable as well. Hopefully this will work, would really appreciate the help!

Also, as a side note, I am interested in doing a clean install. From what I have heard, Snow Leopard does NOT give you the option to clean install, but only upgrade. I alreay have all my information backed up to both an external HDD as well as my Time Capsule. So would my best bet to be use Disk Utility and use its ERASE feature on my Mac HDD first, then upgrade this to SL? Or in Disk Utility, would I use some other feature such as Restore, ect. I am a bit shaky on this, so any help would be great. Really, I just want a blank HDD already formatted for OSX, and then to upgrade this from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Thank so much!
 
Blazer5913 said:
Also, as a side note, I am interested in doing a clean install. From what I have heard, Snow Leopard does NOT give you the option to clean install, but only upgrade. I alreay have all my information backed up to both an external HDD as well as my Time Capsule. So would my best bet to be use Disk Utility and use its ERASE feature on my Mac HDD first, then upgrade this to SL? Or in Disk Utility, would I use some other feature such as Restore, ect. I am a bit shaky on this, so any help would be great. Really, I just want a blank HDD already formatted for OSX, and then to upgrade this from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Thank so much!
Click to expand...

Yes if your HDD is erased prior to installing Snow Leopard it will do a clean install. You can use the Disk Utilities app available in the Snow Leopard installer to do this right before installing Snow Leopard. This link here goes in detail of how exactly to do this.
 
Nevermind about buying that Firewire cable, I forgot that Fire800 is just a simple connection, same "end" on each end, that square blocky thing, and not the round oval like firewire 400. Okay, i have one of them, so that will be the first thing i try when I get home. @Tag, thanks for the help too!
 
monokakata said:
Hmm. Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, and am missing something in this thread, but why don't you try putting the SL DVD in one of your machines that has a working DVD drive, attaching that machine to your MBP via a firewire cable, starting the working-drive machine into target disk mode, and going from there?

I remember trying that once, and it worked. I didn't do the install, because I just wanted to see whether I could "see" the DVD drive on the other machine.

I just tried it again, to make sure -- Mac Pro running, booted MBP into TD mode (by holding down the T key while booting it), no problem seeing the DVD drive on the MBP.

True, you have to have a FW cable. But they are everywhere.
Click to expand...

Negative. So I hooked up m 15" MBP (broken optical drive) to my brothers newer 13" MBP and it recognized the drive in Tmode. Yet, when I clicked the Snow Leopard Install Disc icon on the DVD, an error message came up basically saying "Cannot install via this method." I think it wants/needs to be installed via that "remote osx install method" but I cannot for the life of me get ANYTHING to come up after restart+option key to say just Macintosh HDD. I've tried hooking up ethernet cable, selecting ethernet, but still just Mac HDD. Left the firewire in for ***** and giggles, nothing. ANY IDEAS? I have an applecare appt saying that my optical drive was broken and could be fixed for free from about a year ago, citing the specific problem but I could not take it in due to an exam. But I have that paper, and even though my applecare is expired, I feel like storming into the apple store and demanding something be done. I don't care if they fix my drive, but just put the friggin OS onto my laptop via a clean install somehow. It's not like I haven't tried, dear god i've tried everything. anybody?
 
I don't know. I can't see why it shouldn't work, but I'm not doubting you.

I have an old MBP and if I can find time, I'll try an actual install (even though it has SL on it already). As I wrote, I've never gone beyond observing that the DVD is accessible.

Your "purchased copy" is the $29 retail SL DVD, right?

I'm surprised that no one else is weighing in on this. I see "can't install XXX" threads all the time.
 
monokakata said:
I don't know. I can't see why it shouldn't work, but I'm not doubting you.

I have an old MBP and if I can find time, I'll try an actual install (even though it has SL on it already). As I wrote, I've never gone beyond observing that the DVD is accessible.

Your "purchased copy" is the $29 retail SL DVD, right?

I'm surprised that no one else is weighing in on this. I see "can't install XXX" threads all the time.
Click to expand...

thanks alot for the reply. If you have the time, and a big IF (if not, don't worry about it at all), that would be great if you could try and see if I'm doing something wrong. I mean the disc shows up fine on my MBP (with its own broken optical drive) and I can access the multiple folders on the OSX Snow leopard disc, but when I click the main one "Install OSX", it basically says cannot complete (...via this method I am assuming). And yes, I have the actual retail SL DVD, box and all. I even have a torrented copy that I got once this DVD method would not work, but in order to install from a torrent, I need a clean partitioned HDD, and my external does not have room. And I do not have a USB drive greater than 1gb, so it wouldn't fit on that either. Its like God is telling me "don't install SL!!!!" haha, but I will most likely just take it to the Apple store this weekend and have them take a look at it. Please let me know if you have any sort of luck? thanks
 
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