Install Leopard on a laptop with a broken DVD drive

I went to install Leopard on an older laptop (PB G5) only to discover it had a broken DVD drive. I tried to install it from my intel MBP (running Snow Leopard) via ethernet, firewire, and also via a flash drive, all with no success.
It used to be easy to do this with earlier versions of OS X. Is it still possible to do this? If so, can you tell me how?
Thanks.

I'll assume you mean PowerBook G4; as a PowerBook G5 was never produced.
1) Put the DVD in your MacBook Pro.
2) Boot the MacBook Pro while holding down T.
3) Hook the MacBook Pro and the PB together with a FireWire cable.
4) Boot up the PB while holding down the Option key.
5) Select the DVD to boot from, and boot up. Install.
This is all assuming that you are using a retail Leopard DVD (starry pattern with a big X on it.) A grey coloured Leopard DVD that shipped with a new Intel Mac will not work on any PowerPC Mac.

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Installing Leopard onto a laptop with a broken internal DVD drive?

I'm trying to install Leopard onto my PowerBook G4 (yes, long past the warranty but she's an old workhorse). The internal DVD "super" drive has been broken for a couple of years, so I've got a nice, fast, solid Sony external USB 2.0 DVD/CD player/burner.
Just now I inserted the install disk into the drive. The disk mounted. Install window popped up automatically. Clicked the button to restart and install... the Mac restarts alright, but there's no installation happening (and no error message to tell me what's happening).
I've been searching the documentation and this forum and so far I'm stumped. Can anyone shed any light on this?
Is it simply impossible to install Leopard from an external USB drive? If so, is there a non-disk method anyone can suggest?

Please post the specs on your g4, lets make sure its possible first, then someone here can help get you going.
And to add to that, I am thinking that it would have to be a firewire disk drive to boot (?? Anyone?)
I also have to agree with Jeff, If you have another mac with a working dvd drive, or know someone (use beer as payment ) with a mac that would be quick and easy. If you do it as jeff suggests, then both macs need to be the same, or if they are different, you can put the disk in the borrowed mac, shut it down and restart holding the T key, putting borrowed mac into target mode, then hook you mac and borrowed mac together with a firewire cable, start your mac holding the alt/option key which will bring you to the disk selection screen, pick the Leopard disk and it should start the installation.
Make sure when you get to the point in the installer where it asks you which disk you want to install to, make sure you select your mac (as the borrowed mac's hdd will show up also)
The above method basically turns the borrowed mac into an external firewire DVD drive. K
Message was edited by: eschw95458

How is it possible to install Windows 7 via USB-Stick on a 2009 iMac with a broken DVD-Drive?

Hello,
i have a 2009 iMac and Windows 7 64bit in my Boot Camp.
Windows is now slow and needs to be reinstalled.
The problem is the DVD-Drive in my iMac is broken, so i can't use my Windows-install-DVD.
How can i reinstall Windows 7 via USB-Stick on a 2009 iMac with a broken DVD-Drive?

F3Spirit wrote:
Thank you,
I try this.
Also check this one out
But i think you would be far better served by installing Windows in a virtual machine.

Reinstalling OS with a broken DVD-Drive

Hi guys
I got this MacBook from around 2009 with a broken DVD-Drive, and I want to reinstall the OS.
Im not that much into the Mac stuff, since I got the computer from a friend a few days ago.
I got acess to some Windows computers and an external DVD-Drive, but the MacBook can't seem to find the external drive.
How could I reinstall the OS or somehow approach this?

Yes.
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. 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 (for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
When formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.

HP 6910p laptop with Matshita ujda775 dvd drive and SIM Card slot

Hello everyone ,
I have an HP Compaq 6910p with Windows 7 ultimate 32bit installed, the laptop has Matshita ujda775 DVD Drive,
After a search about its specifications I found on ehow - Matshita UJDA775 Specifications that it can write to CDs but when I try it says "Blank CD/DVD not detected " .
how can I do it, If it is true that it can write to CDs?
Another question is how to use the SIM card slot in my laptop to connect to the internet?
Thank you.

Yes it should burn CDs. Try the fix linked in this prior thread:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-e-g-Windows-8/Optical-Drive-Will-Not-Burn/m-p/2795995...
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Installation with a broken DVD drive

I have two Mac laptops (12" PowerBook), 1Ghz PPC G4, with optical drives that no longer work but otherwise are fully functional. I bought the Family Pack Leopard disk but neither machine can read it. (A macMini was successful, an 800MHz iMac said it was too old.)
I suppose I need a get and attach an external drive to the machines to perform the installation unless there is some other magic over the wireless way to do this. Any suggestions?
(I wish Apple would put out a 12" MacBook Pro so I could retire the ones I have. MacBook Air won't do it.)

You can't install it wirelessly. You can either buy an external dvd drive or try the suggestion in this thread for firewire target disk mode.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007102821212762

Upgrading mac mini from tiger to leopard with broken DVD drive (long)

bonjour.
I have a macmini (1.42PPC) with a broken DVD drive running tiger on which i would like to install leopard (from scratch). I have a retail DVD of leopard, and a macbook. Other equipment includes a PSP and an 8Gb memory stick duo, usb cables, a 40Gb ipod with firewire cable. Wireless keyboard and mouse.
I've created a bootable image of my leopard DVD onto the 8Gb memory stick in the PSP using the macbook. I can plug the PSP into the macbook and the memory stick mounts as the leopard install DVD. I run InstallOSX and i'm prompted to reboot. Upon rebooting, my macbook boots from the memory stick in the PSP attached via USB and the language option menu of the install process appears. So far so good. I shutdown the macbook.
I then take my bootable image of my leopard DVD and plug it into the macmini. It automounts, i run InstallOSX and i'm prompted to reboot and the macmini restarts.
Unfortunately, the macmini reboots from it's internal HDD, and not the memory stick attached via USB so the installation fails.
Is there a way i can force the macmini to boot or reboot from the USB drive? I only have a wireless keyboard. Does the macmini in fact support booting from a USB device at all?
I don't know much about the firmware shipped with the macmini, and can not access it during startup to take a look as i have a wireless keyboard. Can i access the firmware from the booted macmini to change the boot device, like i can with a Sun Solaris box (eeprom)
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I don't have the option of buying additional equipement.
Any thoughts on this problem would be welcome.
best wishes
jack
ps. I added (long) to topic subject, not to phish, but to save others' time, as it's quite a long and boring post

thanks for your advice, however this is all but impossible as i have a wireless keyboard which doesn't permit me boot into anything but the OS, as the keyboard and bluetooth drivers don't load early enough in the boot process.
however, i did find a firewire cable, so this is what i did:
booted the macmini in target mode and added a 10Gb partition to it from the macbook, onto which i restored the leopard DVD image
booted the mac mini normally, and it mounted my new partition. I just ran the install from there et voila

I need to install the HP drivers on a laptop with a broken screen in order to get VGA port to work.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
Hewlett Packard Model: 2000 2a20ca Notebook
Oh my god please give me some insight here, it is so hard to find the right answers and I refuse to lose to this technical box that's driving me nuts! So here's the run down:
My screen broke on laptop...fine. It was connected via HDMI to TV and working fine. Until one day it decided to not turn on. I think due to Windows updates and hubby had no patience so kept restarting
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RocknRoll77 wrote:
Seriously?
1. The model number is the first thing at the top aside from the OS.
2. In my explanation it states: "I have the drivers on a disk"
Thanks for all your help!
Getting the drivers is not the problem. Getting the drivers installed on a laptop with a broken screen...is the problem.
Ok, well sometimes you can't use external monitor to see what is happening in some laptops and the only real way to fix this is to fix the broken screen so you can reformat and resinstall the system again. Those are you only options at this point in time.
I am a Volunteer to help others on here-not a HP employee.
Replies aren't online 24/7 because of Time Zone differences.
Remember in this Day and Age of Computing the Internet is Knowledge at your fingertips if you choose understand it. -2015-

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I upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard.
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Mac OS X Feedback
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And/Or
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<http://bugreporter.apple.com>
Free ADC (Apple Developer Connection) account needed for BugReporter.
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Hi,
I need to install OS X on a MacBook that has a broken DVD drive. How is best to so this? Install over FireWire? Use Remote Install? I have access to a working MacBook Pro.
Thanks,
James.

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Install Leopard on a laptop with a broken DVD drive

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