DCEmulation

My girlfriend has an old MacBook that she is looking to get rid of, and would like to wipe the hard drive and do a clean install first. However, the system disc is long gone. The computer is a 2GHz Core2 Duo MacBook.

I still have the Leopard restore disc that came with my 15" MacBook Pro, and Eva has the Snow Leopard restore disc that came with her new 13" MacBook Pro. However these are not retail OSX discs; they are the emergency restore discs that came with the aforementioned systems... and Apple (like many computer manufacturers) locks its system restore discs to the specific model with which they are bundled. Thus, the discs refuse to install on another model computer.

Is there any workaround we can use to reformat the MacBook's hard drive and reinstall the OS from one of these two discs?

You might be able to call cupertino and order a copy of your restore disc from them, or possibly download it from them. I'm sure they'll probably just go by the serial number. Or you could always swing by the store and see if they can help you.

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Put the macbook into target disk mode, then attach it to your mac. Boot the restore disc on your machine and select the macbook(now in target disc mode) as you hard drive. This will allow not only the installation of the os but also the software that came with the machine i.e. iLife. That said I do believe the machine will simply boot and install off any restore disc.

I haven't really played with target disc mode at all; I'll give that a try. Does it have to be a physical attachment (i.e. USB A > A cable), or can it be via wifi/Bluetooth?



Believe me, I've tried. Neither the 10.5 restore disc (from my 15" MacBook Pro) nor the 10.6 restore disc (from her new 13" MacBook Pro) works. Each time, it simply says something like "Mac OSX cannot be installed on this machine."

Just pirate the damn thing already.

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Lines join in faint discord and the Stormwatch brews
. . a concert of Kings as the white sea snaps
. . at the heels of a soft prayer
. . whispered

Windows PC restore, and OEM, discs rely on BIOS identification to install, or activate on their target systems. Is there something similar with Macs? Maybe you could use a bootloader, or bootdisc of some sort, capable of emulating the BIOS of the particular machine the restore disc was built for...

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Found a workaround. Her new computer qualifies for the free Lion upgrade, which we used to make an install disc. Then according to information gleaned from the Intarwebs, we were able to trick Lion into thinking Leopard was actually Snow Leopard, which allowed the installation to proceed.

I hope you did a DBAN run, and not just expected a new OS to wipe your hard drive...