I'm screwed, not booting up

[MacBookDan]

Hi guys, long time no post, reason being my Mac has been fine until now.

I have had Mac OS X Leopard and Vista dual booting for awhile now, everything has been fine.

My girlfriends brother has been using my MacBook without my permission and I think he is the one who has broken my disc drive.

The disc drive worked perfectly fine when I was using it, and now it just takes the disc in, spins, stops spins,spits out... I got an external USB DVD Drive and decided it was time to install Windows 7. I installed the Windows whilst on Vista and everything went fine. I then decided to try and remove the Vista Parititon but then I rebooted and it came up with BOOTMGR missing...

Now I'm stuck with a non-working MacBook since it won't read from the USB WINDOWS XP I've made, I've tried multiple times, and it won't read from USB DVD DRIVE.

Now I can't boot into Mac for some reason it comes up now as a flashing
[ ? ]

Problem is, I can't install Windows as it doesn't read from discs (both drives) and USB booting doesn't work.

I have no OS X disc since I purchased this refurbished, so now I'm stuck. I've just purchased a DVD drive from eBay so that will fix the problem, but what can I do about MAC OS X? I need to install it again, but I have no disc. Where can I get this for free? I don't wonna have to pay for the OS again as it was part of the price.

Thank you

 

[MacBookDan]

Not asking for illegal downloads btw. How can I boot up from USB? I've tried everything!

 

[UpQuark]

Not asking for illegal downloads btw. How can I boot up from USB? I've tried everything!

BTW, refurbished from Apple laptops come with all the standard 'like new' software. Check your packaging, if you purchased it from Apple Refurb. Store.


Without a system DVD, you kinda are stuck. However, if you had a mac OS system dvd and an external DVD reader, you can boot from that by putting the DVD in the drive, powering up the laptop and holding down the C key. That will force the firmware to look for a bootable drive and boot from it.

Likewise, on powerup, hold down the OPTION key - that will provide you a list of bootable partitions - one being the external drive.

Good luck!

 

[MacBookDan]

BTW, refurbished from Apple laptops come with all the standard 'like new' software. Check your packaging, if you purchased it from Apple Refurb. Store.


Without a system DVD, you kinda are stuck. However, if you had a mac OS system dvd and an external DVD reader, you can boot from that by putting the DVD in the drive, powering up the laptop and holding down the C key. That will force the firmware to look for a bootable drive and boot from it.

Likewise, on powerup, hold down the OPTION key - that will provide you a list of bootable partitions - one being the external drive.

Good luck!

I replaced the DVD drive, and have Windows 7 installed at the moment. I am still without Mac OS X disc . Is it illegal to download MAC OS X if you have already purchased / owned the disc? Will Apple send me one?

This was purchased from a store on eBay and came with no discs.

 

[GGJstudios]

I replaced the DVD drive, and have Windows 7 installed at the moment. I am still without Mac OS X disc . Is it illegal to download MAC OS X if you have already purchased / owned the disc? Will Apple send me one?

This was purchased from a store on eBay and came with no discs.

It's a violation of Apple's EULA to download copied/pirated versions of Mac OS X. If you call Apple, they can send you replacement disks. As an alternative, you can buy the retail version of Snow Leopard and upgrade to that.