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View Full Version : Installing Leopard without a DVD

Sea2008
10-28-2007, 01:11 AM
Is there any way to work around this problem:

I just bought the Leopard family pack for my Mac Pro and my 1 Ghz PowerBook 12". I loaded Leopard onto the Mac Pro with no problem--but when I tried to install it on the PB 12", I discovered that my PowerBook's DVD player has died. (There had been some indications of flakey behavior over the past few months, and none of the other DVDs I tried would work--they would just get ejected.)

My question is this: is there any other way to install Leopard onto my PB without using the DVD? I do have a working DVD player on the Mac Pro, as well as a myriad of hard drives and iPods that could be used in disk mode.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
seek3r
10-28-2007, 01:50 AM
Booting the Mac Pro into firewire disk mode, linking with your powerbook using firewire, and using the Mac Pro's dvd drive seems the simplest to me given your available hardware.
Sea2008
10-28-2007, 04:22 AM
Booting the Mac Pro into firewire disk mode, linking with your powerbook using firewire, and using the Mac Pro's dvd drive seems the simplest to me given your available hardware.

That worked! (and took a seriously long time!) Thanks for the tip.
nvidia2008
10-28-2007, 07:15 AM
Image your Leopard Disk to a Mac partition on FW or USB2!! drive :D
nvidia2008
10-28-2007, 07:22 AM
Better still, use NetInstall over Gigabit Ethernet from Leopard Server. Frickin fast, I tells ya. :smokey:
jroller
10-28-2007, 10:01 AM
Better still, use NetInstall over Gigabit Ethernet from Leopard Server. Frickin fast, I tells ya. :smokey:

Do you have to use a Leopard server? And if you have a Leopard server, can you install on older "unsupported" machines?

I have an xserve, but it is still running 10.3.x
seek3r
10-28-2007, 01:35 PM
That worked! (and took a seriously long time!) Thanks for the tip.

NP, happy to help :-)
Tiger Mike
10-29-2007, 09:30 PM
That worked! (and took a seriously long time!) Thanks for the tip.

Am going to try this just how long did it take? Thanks:wow
Infestma
10-31-2007, 04:22 AM
That worked! (and took a seriously long time!) Thanks for the tip.

Can you please tell us how Leopord is running on your powerbook? I'm curious because I wanna install it on my sisters PB but I'm hesitating since it's a couple years old.
Sea2008
10-31-2007, 11:33 AM
Can you please tell us how Leopord is running on your powerbook? I'm curious because I wanna install it on my sisters PB but I'm hesitating since it's a couple years old.

To answer the last two questions: installation ended up taking about three hours (much longer than on my Mac Pro) using target disk mode.

And Leopard is running great on the PB. I'm sure some of the more graphically intense functions to be a bit pokey, but for the most part apps are launching faster, and the new mail, ichat and safari are all quick as a whip...
sCreeD
10-31-2007, 01:56 PM
Is there any way to work around this problem:

I just bought the Leopard family pack for my Mac Pro and my 1 Ghz PowerBook 12". I loaded Leopard onto the Mac Pro with no problem--but when I tried to install it on the PB 12", I discovered that my PowerBook's DVD player has died. (There had been some indications of flakey behavior over the past few months, and none of the other DVDs I tried would work--they would just get ejected.)

That's kind of creepy because exactly this situation happened to me:
12" PB + Leopard Family Pack + Dead Drive --> :(

Booting from an external optical drive didn't work.
Bought a refurb drive from ifixit.com

<Sigh>
justintosh
08-12-2009, 01:53 PM
That's kind of creepy because exactly this situation happened to me:
12" PB + Leopard Family Pack + Dead Drive --> :(

Booting from an external optical drive didn't work.
Bought a refurb drive from ifixit.com

<Sigh>

This is bad. This EXACT SAME THING happened to me! I was in the process of installing Leopard on my sister's 12" PowerBook G4 when the installation failed. When the computer restarted, I found that the PowerBook's optical drive had DIED in the install. Now, we have not 1, not 2, but THREE people in a single forum thread who have all experienced this "coincidence" … I think not. It's time Apple got called to task on this issue.