Format & install Leopard from a second Mac, or external drive?

hi there,
i'm trying to format my macbook, but unfortunately my dvd drive won't read my installation disc. after looking through the forums, it appears that i can put the installation disc on an external drive, and do the formatting from there. unfortunately, though i have a drive to clone my computer onto, i don't have an additional drive to dedicate to this re-formatting. however, my roommate believes there's some way he can use his mac to to format mine. is this possible, and if so, how? is one method (external drive vs. second mac) preferable to another?
thank you for your help.
b

With two Macs that support FireWire you can do what you describe, but you must have a MacBook with a FireWire port. You will use Target Disk Mode.
With both computers turned off connect a FireWire cable between them (400 or 800 is fine.) Boot your MacBook into TDM. After the TDM screen appears insert the OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive of the other computer then start it normally and after the chime press and hold down the "C" key to force the computer to boot from the DVD. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. As soon as the menubar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. You can then use the Restore option of Disk Utility to clone your MacBook's drive to a FireWire drive:
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external FireWire drive.
Source means the drive in your MacBook.
You may wish to test this clone to be sure it will boot a computer successfully.
Once you have cloned your MacBook's drive use Disk Utility to erase the drive so you can reinstall OS X.

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Hi there!
I'm a newbie on mac computers.. I've recently purchase a macbook pro retina.
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I am curious whether some people have been installing Leopard from a second or non-adminstrator account.
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My uids are 501 and 502, for my less-than-full-privileged account.
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I believe the only reason the little "Install Mac OS X" application you double-click on to begin the install process asks for an admin password is for the authorization to set the startup disk to the DVD, which is a requirement imposed by the Startup Disk system preference of the OS it is running under. If you just start up from the DVD directly (using the "C" key or option key methods), you are not asked to authenticate.
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How can I install ML in a second mac with out pay

i have two macs ind I want to install ML in the second mac how can i do i have to pay again

Install Snow Leopard or Lion on the other computer. From that computer sign into the App Store with the same Apple ID used to purchase Mountain Lion. Click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. Locate the Mountain Lion entry which should now have an active Install/Download button on the right.
Also, read:
Make Your Own Mountain/Lion Installer
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2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your flash drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
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Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to an hour depending upon the flash drive size.
3. Locate the saved Mountain/Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.
4. Plug in your freshly prepared USB flash drive. You are going to clone the content of the InstallESD.dmg disc image to the flash drive as follows:
Double-click on the InstallESD.dmg file to mount it on your Desktop.
Open Disk Utility.
Select the USB flash drive from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Select the USB flash drive volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Drag the mounted disc icon from the Desktop into the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
When the clone is completed you have a fully bootable installer that you can use without having to re-download Mountain/Lion.
Note: The term Mountain/Lion used above means Lion or Mountain Lion.
As an alternative to the above you can try using Lion DiskMaker 2.0 that automates the process.

How do install Leopard from intel to ppc by Firewire?

Can anyone tell me how to install Leopard from my intel macbook to my older ppc? When I try to install from firewire it says that the drive is going to GUID and non-bootable. My DVD drive on the PPC isn't good enough for the Leopard DVD. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I'm not commenting on whether the type of Mac is compatible with the Leopard install.
I'll offer suggestion for the firewire install. The objective is to take the Leopard DVD and transfer in some way to a firewire drive to be able to boot a PPC Mac and complete a Leopard install to the PPC Mac.
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Installing Leopard from USB flash drive

Basically i need to install Leopard from a USB flash drive on my Macbook, but i will sum up my issue: (I'm afraid i'm not a computer-"geek", so bear with me when i try to explain the issue :-))
My macbook hdd recently died on me, so put in a new, clean hdd. I now need to install Leopard on the new hdd from a DMG-file.
So, i have an 8GB USB flash drive and DMG-file of Leopard.
I formatted the USB flash drive to NTFS, and copied the 6+GB DMG-file onto the flash drive.
I tried booting from the flash drive by holding down the option key, but a blank screen shows up with a mouse pointer. There is no Flash drive or install icon to select.
Can anyone tell me, what i'm doing wrong?

Hi Dweepe;
On top of everything else the other posters pointed out, I would suggest that formatting the USB flash drive to NTFS is not doing you any favors either. NTFS is a propriety file system from Microsoft which the Mac can only read with special software install.
My suggestion is to replace your optical drive. A new one can probably be purchased for much less then the problems you are creating for yourself in your attempts to work around replacing it.
Allan

How to install Leopard from an external DVD reader?

Hi,
I've bought Leopard today. unfortunately, it's not yet installed on my PowerBook. As my SuperDrive is dead, I use now an external DVD (Lacie Portable DVD-RW), but it doesn't work. I can read the Leopard install DVD, but when it reboot, it reboot on my current installation.
I've tried the following during the boot sequence:
- alt pressed, but I can only see my main HDD
- c pressed, but I boot on my current installation
Can you tell me if it is possible to install Leopard from an external DVD, and how can I do that ?
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Emmanuel Di Pretoro

Can you tell me if the same problem occur with a FireWire external DVD ?
It does not occur on your model of Mac.
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Is this just for a test?
If so you can create 3 partitions, one a bootable volume the second partition a place to restore the Leopard image and the third partition to install the new software you restored on the second partition. You do loose two small volumes temporarily, but you can make them relatively small since these are only used for installation purposes. The details can be found on the developer site under " leopardclient_9a377a_seednote.rtf".
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Format & install Leopard from a second Mac, or external drive?

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