Hi all, I have a mac unibody 13inch, and the internal harddisk has failed on me. I bought a new HD WD scorpio 250 g to replace it. The HD is not formatted and therefore not recognised by my computer. I am trying to figure out how to solve this problem. What i would like to know is how i can make a bootable partition on my external HD to install OSX leopard on there. The problem is i can only use a pc for this process as i dont own 2 macs. As i see it, i can then boot the mac of my external HD, and then have disk utility format the internal HD for use with the mac. Is this a correct view of things? Thanks in advance Bas
What I would do is install the replacement drive then boot with your Leopard DVD. You can hold down the Option key to select booting from the DVD. There should be an option to run Disk Utility. Run that and partition and format the drive. Set the file system to OS X Extended (Journaled) and under Options check that you have GUID Partition Table selected. After formatting then go back to the Leopard DVD and install from there. There should be instructions in your manual as well about reinstalling the software that came with your Mac. You could do that with an external drive, but it would have to be firewire to make it bootable.
Thank you Xian for your response. I have installed the new internal HD. I have tried several times to boot the dvd holding the alt key at startup, but it loads and pops out again after a while. The dvd does work in a different mac ive tried that a while back so it isnt damaged. Also when i do "normal boot" a question mark inside a folder appears. That cant be good...
Right after the mac starts up, insert the disk and try the "C" key instead of Option. Option is what you use to boot from an external hard drive, I thought it would work for DVD but I just googled quickly and saw where they said to use the c key.
