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Superdrive is DEAD, Need to install OS X. How?

X

xoggyux

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 4, 2008
445
0
My superdrive is dead (kind off, it can read DVD but badly, is not dirt I cleaned it, it does not read CD so it should be something regarding the lens I have read about that) well I do not want to talk about it.
I knew my superdrive was not doing well, but so far did not have any problem whatsoever reading the intallation disc, so I formatted my disk and when trying to install sometimes it takes ages to get to the installation others it fail right at the middle of verifying disk, and when I cancel it it fails before finishing the installation (the disc is OK, I verified it in another computer.)
What can I do?
I was thinking if its possible of some how put an image in an usb stick and install from there? (if so how?)
I Have another drive (eSATA) that can boot OS X fine (and luckyly I had a backup of my system) I can carbon copy the drive, but I want a clean install.) How can I do it?
EDIT:
Forgot to ask if I buy an external USB DVD drive, will I be able to install OS X off it (I mean will the system detect without any driver installation the usb DVD drive?)
I will take the laptop to genius, but I am kind of in a rush because of finals and they will probably need a long time to fix that (plus I will have to waste a lot of time swapping my SSD back to HDD so they dont get funny on me.)
 
xoggyux said:
My superdrive is dead (kind off, it can read DVD but badly, is not dirt I cleaned it, it does not read CD so it should be something regarding the lens I have read about that) well I do not want to talk about it.
I knew my superdrive was not doing well, but so far did not have any problem whatsoever reading the intallation disc, so I formatted my disk and when trying to install sometimes it takes ages to get to the installation others it fail right at the middle of verifying disk, and when I cancel it it fails before finishing the installation (the disc is OK, I verified it in another computer.)
What can I do?
I was thinking if its possible of some how put an image in an usb stick and install from there? (if so how?)
I Have another drive (eSATA) that can boot OS X fine (and luckyly I had a backup of my system) I can carbon copy the drive, but I want a clean install.) How can I do it?
EDIT:
Forgot to ask if I buy an external USB DVD drive, will I be able to install OS X off it (I mean will the system detect without any driver installation the usb DVD drive?)
I will take the laptop to genius, but I am kind of in a rush because of finals and they will probably need a long time to fix that (plus I will have to waste a lot of time swapping my SSD back to HDD so they dont get funny on me.)
Click to expand...

Try this. Works for me.
 
Surely you can use the Cd share thingy if you have a window's or Mac around.

(forgotten what its actually called but it's what you'd use for a MBA)
 
I am trying to do it, the thing is I have never been able to set up in a reliable fashion a windows-OSX network (I am on vista, in XP I can)
also... will that work OUTSIDE OSX? remember I will have to install the OS, so for me to use that it would have to work even outside OSX can it?
 
J&JPolangin said:
...do any of your friends have a USB external DVD drive?....
Click to expand...

Since I knew the superdrive is failing I was thinking in buying an external, Maybe its time, however I would need to know if I can install OSX from an USB one, just in case I buy one and then the macbook cannot boot off an external USB DVD drive...

I installed the program on my vista computer, and selected share DVD/CD on OS X also did the two commands thing on terminal, and I got access to the network (via smb) but I cannot see the optic drive but I cannot see the drive.

Does anyone know any way of installing OS X from an image disk or even from another HDD? or USB STICK?
 
wow I think I found it (wanted to post in case someone finds this problem in the future.)
I made a dmg image of my install disc on my brothers macbook pro (I tried in my windows pc but the pc only sees the part of the disc where bootcamp drivers are and not the rest of the disk) anyway I used "Disk Utility" to format (OSX Journaled) a 8GB usb drive (a very slow one, so it took a while) then I used the "restore" tab to restore the dmg image into the flash drive. Then I used OSx86 Tools to install EFI drivers (http://tinyurl.com/czc35z) I do not know if this step is necessary or not (I found it on another thread but to achieve a different purpose with a hackintosh PC) anyway it did not hurt doing it. I booted and sure enough I could see my flash drive, I selected it and now OS X is installing (have not finished yet, but 2min remaining, It should work just fine) surprizingly enough it has taken 10 mins to install OS X from a very slow flash drive (I MEAN IT< IT TOOK 5MINS TO FORMAT AND 2 HOURS TO COPY THE WHOLE IMAGE INTO IT< VERY VERY SLOW) still with DVD it would take 2 hours to install as with this flash drive is taking a few minutes (I think I am going to buy a 8gb USB drive just for OS X installation now :D)
Let you guys now when I am inside to confirm success, as it has not finished yet.
 
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