Macbook Instillation Cd's & Restart Help

[10lbMoustache]

My Macbooks hard drive finally ate dirt a couple of days ago and I just bought a new hard drive and installed it.

The problem is I was previously having problems with its optical drive, it will try running any type of cd, blank, or dvd and eventually eject it which poses the huge problem with me trying to install the macbooks instillation cd's.

I was wondering if I could use disc utility to copy the cd's on my other mac (power mac G4 & Macbook Air) and then restore them on an erased usb flash drive and just have that plugged in when i start up my macbook.

I am just wondering if that would work at all?

 

[JediMeister]

I don't think Disk Utility can create images of dual layer discs very well, which is what both the gray discs are...besides, I doubt you have a flash drive that can carry the capacity of one or both discs...if the unit is in warranty, get the optical drive issue addressed first. If you have a friend with a similar/same model MacBook, you can connect both units by a FireWire 6-pin to 6-pin and use Target Disk mode to install the OS on your MacBook from the other one.

 

[10lbMoustache]

I have used disc utility before for other dual layer instillations and to back up other things on my power mac to use on my macbook and its worked easily just transfering the .dmg file and the instillation cd's are under 8 gigs and would fit on my flash.

Also tell me more about this Target Disc.

 

[JediMeister]

Essentially Target Disk Mode turns the target computer (your Macbook in this case) into an external hard drive accessible by the host (your friend's MacBook that can use the same install discs). The operation is outlined here.