My daughter's Macbook (1.83GHz Core Duo 2GB RAM, 60GB) hard drive bit the dust. I installed a new 320 GB internal hard drive. Her CDRW drive is non-functioning and so she has an external CD/DVD drive which connects via USB. Her laptop was purchased used and came with no install discs but likely was OS 10.4. I have install discs for OS 10.5.2 for a Macbook. I booted up the computer from the install disk, formatted the new internal hard drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition scheme. I am now trying to install an operating system onto this new internal hard drive, however when I boot up with the installer disk and choose "English" as the language, the dialogue box "Preparing installation" appears for a few seconds and then I get the dialogue box that says "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer". Underneath that it says "This software cannot be installed on this computer". There are only 2 buttons to click on below that "OK" and "Restart". Why am I not able to install the operating system? Is there any solution or workaround? If anyone can offer some help, that would be fantastic. Thanks!
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Installing OS 10.5 onto new internal drive from external CD/DVD drive
- Thread starter musicdad61
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There is your problem right there. The disks you are using can only be used to reinstall 10.5 on the MacBook that they came with otherwise you will receive the "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer" error. You will need a retail copy of 10.5 in order for it to install properly on your daughter's machine.
Thanks, Gradsta. I guess if her Macbook would have come with the 10.4 original install discs I could have used those. I wonder why the OS 10.5 discs I have won't work, though, because they are real Apple OS discs that came with a newer Macbook.
They are system restore disks for that specific model of MacBook. Your older MacBook is a different model hence the "This software cannot be installed on this computer" message.
As stated previously you need a retail copy of Leopard for that machine. Grey discs are system restore, the retail type have the aurora background with a black X logo on it.
Thanks MagicBoy. That helps a lot. I was not aware of the difference between "restore" discs and "retail" discs. It doesn't solve my problem, but it helps me to understand more about what is going on. I have another solution in the works at present, but thanks again to you and all other that have contributed.