MBP, no operating system

[haikujim]

I have an early 2008 mbp, i loaned a friend, and got it back with no operating system. I have a 2012 mac mini, with 10.9.3. and a back up disk, using CCC. in the past, i have used the back up disc as a startup disc, but that doesn't work for some reason. connecting to the back up disc with a firewire cable, nothing shows up on the mbp screen. usually pressing option key gives me choice of recovery partition. but i only get the curser, and nothing else happens.
any suggestions appreciated. I have a firewire and usb cable. but no system discs for the mbp, and the dvd drive probably doesn't work now
the mbp doesn't show up on the mac mini when connected, using the disc utility

 

[DeltaMac]

Try this:
Firewire cable from your mini to the MBPro.
Boot your mini normally.
Boot your MBPro to Target Disk Mode by holding the T key while the MBPro boots. If successful, you should see a floating Firewire icon, and nothing else on the screen.
And, you should see your MBPro hard drive on the Mini, a few seconds after you see the floating FW icon. Check in the Disk Utility, where you can test the MBPro hard drive - and you could even copy the mini hard drive to the MacBookPro hard drive (if you want everything), or you can download the Mavericks installer through the App Store, and install Mavericks on the MBPro hard drive.
If you still don't see anything of the MBPro hard drive, then it's very likely that it has failed, and you will need to replace it with a new drive (consider an SSD for that!)

 

[haikujim]

thanks so much

I will try it and see. thanks