Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Leopard will not install but Ubuntu will

bobbytomorow

bobbytomorow

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 10, 2007
432
23
Left Coast
I have a MacBook, 1st generation, and for some reason it will not install OS X Leopard, but will install Ubuntu.

I thought of the obvious first, that my Leopard disc is scratched so I used my Tiger recovery Discs which have never been used or out of their packaging and the MacBook wouldn't install Tiger either.

It always gets about 90% complete and tells me that there were errors and to try again, but like I said it will install Ubuntu no problem.

Any Ideas?
 
BlueRevolution said:
You mean the installer says it had errors? Have you tried formatting the drive with security options set to zero out existing data?
Click to expand...

I am kind of a noob to macs, not totally useless, but fairly new. What I am starting to think is that Ubuntu was on a CD while Leopard and Tiger are on DVD's so I think now that it may be a problem with the combo drive not being able to read DVD's properly.

I will give what you suggested a shot though. And yes the installer stops about 90% through the installation and says that it could not be installed there was errors and to check my disc and restart.

Thanks.
 
bobbytomorow said:
I am kind of a noob to macs, not totally useless, but fairly new. What I am starting to think is that Ubuntu was on a CD while Leopard and Tiger are on DVD's so I think now that it may be a problem with the combo drive not being able to read DVD's properly.
Click to expand...

I doubt it. Usually it's a matter of either working or not working, rather than kinda working. Even if only CDs work, it would likely refuse to read DVDs altogether.

Hang on, do you mean that it gives you an error in the "checking disk" stage?
 
BlueRevolution said:
I doubt it. Usually it's a matter of either working or not working, rather than kinda working. Even if only CDs work, it would likely refuse to read DVDs altogether.

Hang on, do you mean that it gives you an error in the "checking disk" stage?
Click to expand...

Checking Disc takes forever, infact even booting off a OS X disc takes forever, although booting from an Ubuntu Live CD is very quick. Which leads me to beleive that it is not properly reading DVD's. Its also very noisy and I hear a lot of thrashiong when a DVD is inserted.

Anyway since it takes so long to check installation disc during install, I'm talking after 15 or so minutes it is still only 1% done, I skip it and go right to install. I'm trying to do erase install btw, but at various points during install it will stop and give me the error message that such and such couldn't be installed, or that there were errors etc...and to check the disc and restart.

Like I said I also tried brand new Tiger Disc's right out of their packaging and got the same results, so do not think its just my Leopard disc.

Should I take the MacBook apart and disassemble the optical drive to attempt to clean the lens?
 
Hmm, that does sound like a drive issue. It's normally quite slow to boot to and verify the disk, but it shouldn't be that bad. Do you have another Mac available?

Do not try to fix this yourself. Take it to a professional who knows what they're doing. Trust me. Replacing the drive is no trivial task, disassembling and trying to clean it even less so. You could try using a drive cleaning disk, though.
 
BlueRevolution said:
Hmm, that does sound like a drive issue. It's normally quite slow to boot to and verify the disk, but it shouldn't be that bad. Do you have another Mac available?

Do not try to fix this yourself. Take it to a professional who knows what they're doing. Trust me. Replacing the drive is no trivial task, disassembling and trying to clean it even less so. You could try using a drive cleaning disk, though.
Click to expand...

hmm I have taken it apart before to blow it out with compressed air. I build PC's/gaming rigs so I am fairly competent when it comes to fixing hardware, I'm just a noob when it comes to Mac software and diagnosing Mac problems because I am fairly new to them :eek:

Unfortunately I do not have another Mac either. I am thinking maybe buy a cheap external DVD drive and try to install from that, if all goes well then at least i will know for certain that it is in fact the optical drive.

I suspected it was an optical drive issue because it installed Ubuntu off of a CD no problem but I just wanted to bouce around a few ideas in case I am missing something.
 
I've done some desktop building/repair as well, but laptops are a whole different animal.

Why don't you try some DVDs in Ubuntu and see if it works okay there?
 
Have you checked the disk using Disk Utility off one of your discs? Disks, discs, deescs.

The difference in read time is probably due to the average read times between CDs and DVDs. My drive, for example, reads CDs at 24x and DVDs at 8x.
 
bobbytomorow said:
Verify the HDD? You mean see that it is there? I can see that it is there yes in disc utility yes. Or do you mean something else entirely?
Click to expand...

No verifying the hdd means it checks it to see if there are any problems as in bad sectors. I have seen installs go to 90 percent and then failure because it was trying to write a file on a damaged part of the disk. Hence the failure.

If it finds Bad blocks i would recommend the disk be replaced
 
bobbytomorow said:
I have a MacBook, 1st generation, and for some reason it will not install OS X Leopard, but will install Ubuntu.

I thought of the obvious first, that my Leopard disc is scratched so I used my Tiger recovery Discs which have never been used or out of their packaging and the MacBook wouldn't install Tiger either.

It always gets about 90% complete and tells me that there were errors and to try again, but like I said it will install Ubuntu no problem.

Any Ideas?
Click to expand...

How much memory do you have in the MacBook? Did you upgrade the memory? If so, what brand? If you still have your original memory sticks that came with the computer, I suggest popping those in, and trying to install Leopard from there. Or, if you did upgrade the memory, take one of the sticks out, and try installing from there. You might have a faulty memory module.

I remember I had this problem with my old PowerBook G4. PowerPC Macs were much more pickier about RAM than Intel systems. AND Leopard is also pickier about RAM for whatever reason. The reason I know this is because I was able to install Tiger on the PowerBook, but then when I tried to install Leopard, it would either freeze, or it would go up to a certain point (say 50%, or 90% like you), and tell me installation failed. When I took out one of the memory modules (I had a pair of 1GB sticks), I was able to install Leopard! To my surprise, I redid the installation with just the stick that I took out, and guess what? Went up to whatever percent, and told me installation failed. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I suggest you try this first. Ubuntu will install probably because it's not as picky about RAM, even if it's defective.

Or, if it is indeed your combo drive, maybe you should try creating a separate partition on your HD in Disk Utility, and then clone the install DVD onto the new partition. Then boot from that partition, and see if you can install Leopard from there (BTW it'll be much faster than installing from the DVD).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back