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is there a way to install os x 10.6 without a cd?

harveylong26

harveylong26

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 5, 2014
21
0
England
My CD drive is dead on my mac, its just doesn't work and when I tired it broke one of my blank disks.
My HDDs were wiped that had Mac on as I was trying to fix one but I messed up and lost all my data, my only backup is corrupted.
I need to re-install OS X 10.6 for school, but without a CD drive i cant do this, I dont even have the install CDs since my friend gave me this macbook.

Heres my macbook : https://www.ifixit.com/info/ID-your-Mac/382

Is there any way I can install without a CD? every time i try to install with a usb it gives me a flashing folder. Im using a windows PC and ive tried Transmac, doesn't seem to work :apple:
 
You can install it off a 8GB USB. You need a disk image (.dmg or .iso or equivalent) of the 10.6 install DVD.
 
Get a Snow Leopard disk and put it in another Mac. Open Disk Utility, select the disk, and click New Image to make a disk image of the disk. Then plug in a USB storage device, and restore the disk image to the USB volume with disk utility.
 
blueroom said:
Mac's that come with a SuperDrive will not install OS X from a USB flash drive.
Click to expand...

Hmm maybe that was why the mountain lion usb stick i made did not work on my macbook pro and just showed a circle with a line through it sign (whatever thats called). I do know that an external disk drive certainly works. Apple's Lion USB stick also works but that is because it appears as a disk drive instead of a USB stick.
 
No offence to blueroom but he really has no idea what hes talking about. All Macs that I own have Superdrives in them and I have installed OSX using a USB every time.

Make sure you back up whatever is on your 8gb USB as it is about to get wiped.

Plug in a USB to your computer. Fire up Disk Utility, and select your USB drive. Go to the partitions tab, select "1 Partition" and press the "Options" box under it. Select the GUID partition table. In the format field select 'Mac OSX Extended (Journaled)'. Then press "Partition" to begin wiping the USB.

After this is done, go to the Restore tab. In "Source" select the disk image of OSX you want to install. The destination should be your 8GB USB. Press "Restore" and it will make a bootable USB version of the OSX installer. This could take 20 minutes to an hour depending on how fast your USB is.

Turn on your computer and hold down the option key during the white screen before the Apple logo appears. Now plug in your USB, it should appear as a OSX installer, select that and you can then install OSX.
 
harrydebest said:
No offence to blueroom but he really has no idea what hes talking about. All Macs that I own have Superdrives in them and I have installed OSX using a USB every time.

Make sure you back up whatever is on your 8gb USB as it is about to get wiped.

Plug in a USB to your computer. Fire up Disk Utility, and select your USB drive. Go to the partitions tab, select "1 Partition" and press the "Options" box under it. Select the GUID partition table. In the format field select 'Mac OSX Extended (Journaled)'. Then press "Partition" to begin wiping the USB.

After this is done, go to the Restore tab. In "Source" select the disk image of OSX you want to install. The destination should be your 8GB USB. Press "Restore" and it will make a bootable USB version of the OSX installer. This could take 20 minutes to an hour depending on how fast your USB is.

Turn on your computer and hold down the option key during the white screen before the Apple logo appears. Now plug in your USB, it should appear as a OSX installer, select that and you can then install OSX.
Click to expand...

Ive tried that but theres one tiny issue now, I dont have an OS on the mac... :mad: is there a way I could do it in windows or a virtual machine?
 
harrydebest said:
Download this http://www.acutesystems.com/scrtm.htm

1. Right click your USB and press 'Format it for Mac'
2. Restore using .dmg/.iso
Click to expand...

Okay I did that, Ive got a flashy folder with a ? in it.
Im trying to install 10.8.5, But I dont think this mac supports it.
Any way to get hold of like <10.6? Or am I just doing something wrong to get the ? folder??

EDIT ** When I hold down ALT to try and boot, its literally a grey screen with a mouse cursor...
 
Last edited:
harveylong26 said:
Okay I did that, Ive got a flashy folder with a ? in it.
Im trying to install 10.8.5, But I dont think this mac supports it.
Any way to get hold of like <10.6? Or am I just doing something wrong to get the ? folder??

EDIT ** When I hold down ALT to try and boot, its literally a grey screen with a mouse cursor...
Click to expand...

If it doesn't find the installation with Option boot (holding Alt while starting) there is most likely something wrong with the usb drive. Did you restore the image to it correctly? Is the partition map GUID? otherwise it would find it.

What kind of macbook is it btw? Might not support 10.8 like you assume. MacBooks with Core Duo CPU can do 10.6.8 and MacBooks with Core2Duo and Intel graphics can do 10.7.5. If its got nvidia graphics, you can go all the way up to Yosemite 10.10.
 
DaKKs said:
If it doesn't find the installation with Option boot (holding Alt while starting) there is most likely something wrong with the usb drive. Did you restore the image to it correctly? Is the partition map GUID? otherwise it would find it.

What kind of macbook is it btw? Might not support 10.8 like you assume. MacBooks with Core Duo CPU can do 10.6.8 and MacBooks with Core2Duo and Intel graphics can do 10.7.5. If its got nvidia graphics, you can go all the way up to Yosemite 10.10.
Click to expand...

Im doing it on Windows, How do I do a GUID Partition map?
Any software?
Its a early 2006 core duo macbook.
 
Your Mac doesn't support 10.8 -.- it only supports up to 10.6.8 like DaKKs said.

Use this to format your USB into a GUID Partition map http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297800

Then use the tool I mentioned earlier, format then restore. Make sure you get an disk image of 10.6 (Snow Leopard?) and not anything newer than that.
 
harveylong26 said:
Im doing it on Windows, How do I do a GUID Partition map?
Any software?
Its a early 2006 core duo macbook.
Click to expand...

Then there is your problem. Same Macbook as one of mine. You need the 10.6 image. Nothing above that works. 10.6.8 with all updates is as high as you can go.

Ironically that machine can support Windows 7 perfectly. I think there is even a modded driver that works with Windows 8/8.1. Linux runs splendid too. Its just Apple that crippled it completely.
 
harveylong26 said:
Do you know of any tutorials that I could work off?
Click to expand...

You will need:
Another Mac
USB storage device

1. On another Mac, insert the Snow Leopard install disk.
2. Open Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder in Applications folder)
3. Select the install disk, and click "New Image" in the toolbar. Click Save.
4. After you finish copying the disk, eject the disk and insert your USB storage device.
5. If your disk image is not in the list in Disk Utility, drag it in. Select the image and click the "Restore" tab. Choose the image as the Source and choose the USB device as the destination. Click Restore.
6. After you are done the Restore, eject the USB device. Now plug it in the Mac you wan to install OS X.
7. Hold the option key and press the power button. Release the option key when the screen comes up.
8. Select the USB device with Mac OS X install to boot from.
 
harrydebest said:
Your Mac doesn't support 10.8 -.- it only supports up to 10.6.8 like DaKKs said.

Use this to format your USB into a GUID Partition map http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297800

Then use the tool I mentioned earlier, format then restore. Make sure you get an disk image of 10.6 (Snow Leopard?) and not anything newer than that.
Click to expand...

Im having a really big issue using that tutorial.
When I try to get to the 'new gpt' bit it just gives me a load of options.
59219a537e1cea9d2f6d530e2459eba3.png
 
Thank you to everyone who helped me, I managed to fix my mac. It took me about 3 hours, I simply sat there on CMD trying to convert to GPT format and I managed to figure out what I actually had to type in (Because the Microsoft website wasnt very helpful) So now both of my HDDs are in GPT format and ive got 2 HDDs running on my mac, 10.6.7 installed. Clean and running smooth, now all ive got to do is buy a new charger and a new battery!

Once again thank you everyone for helping me in this thread.

- Harvey :)
 
Sorry to hear

Your problem got no easy solution. You have to give some time and energy for this mac. Since you don't have any disk so, help from other computer is out of question. But, you need another computer to make a portable OS. then you can run your Mac again (if it's not working at all). then you can set up OS X 10.5 cause 10.6 is not downloadable. After installing it, you can update your OS X to 10.6.
 
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