Installing Mac OS on a Mac Mini with a broken superdrive

[iNeko]

I've just installed a new harddrive into my Mac Mini (the 250gb drive out of my MacBook Pro) as well as 2gb of ram to max out the little thing, however I now need to install Mac OS on it as the harddrive is empty...

Can I use the Mini in Target Disk mode and use my MacBook Pro to install Mac OS?

 

[stridemat]

You can obtain an external hard drive with a Firewire port & clone the Leopard installer disc or restore an image of it to that drive.
Use something like Carbon copy cloner or Super Duper to clone!

Or even easier is too use another Mac that has Leopard on it and a working CD/DVD drive. Join both computers on the same network (faster with ethernet cable) and enable CD/DVD Sharing from the Sharing Preference Pane. Once enabled you then put the OS X install DVD in the friend's Mac and it will appear on your desktop. It's like running the disk from your own optical drive.

 

[iNeko]

Sorry, I wasn't clear on what I was asking!

Can I boot the Mac OS install DVD on my MacBook Pro (as in hold C at boot) but instead of installing on to the Macbook Pro drive, I select the Mac Mini's which will be connected over firewire in target disk mode?

 

[iNeko]

I did some reading and it turns out that I can use any recent mac with a working superdrive in TDM as an external superdrive (in a sense) so that means my Mac Mini will (hopefully) live again!

I'll come back and give a reply on how it went as I'm installing Snow Leopard on the poor thing

 

[electroshock]

Sorry, I wasn't clear on what I was asking!

Can I boot the Mac OS install DVD on my MacBook Pro (as in hold C at boot) but instead of installing on to the Macbook Pro drive, I select the Mac Mini's which will be connected over firewire in target disk mode?

I don't know as I haven't tried this in years -- you could give it a try, but the two options the previous poster mentioned would accomplish what you seek. Easiest is the Remote Disc approach he mentioned, which works if both hosts are on same network via wireless or both via Ethernet. See middle of page 2 for the six step instructions of the Snow Leopard Installation manual:

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Snow_Leopard_Installation_Instructions.pdf

 

[iNeko]

I used the target disk mode in the end - the mac mini is restoring from a TM backup at the moment (from before the hard drive died) It all seems to have worked fine, except the macbook pro seemed a little 'ill' after...

I turned off the macbook, unplugged it all, turned it back on and the log on screen fonts were all Comic Sans , I thought it might have been a glitch, so I tried to log on and it took me straight back to the log on screen... I tried shutting down, back to the log on screen... It was like the Comic Sans screen of death!

I held the power button until it turned off and now it all seems to be normal again...

Edit: Just ran through a permissions check and somethings were a little messed up - probably the cause...