Macbook Pro hard drive crash

I have a MacBookPro7,1 Model No: A1278 which has recently had a hard drive crash.
The hard drive clicks and I cant boot up.
I bought the machine from a friend who has since moved away and I cant contact him to get the original disc
that came with the machine.
I have a 500 gb Hitachi hard drive from a Windows machine that is formatted in NTFS.
Installing the hard drive is not a problem, but where do I get an operating system and how do I install it.
Can anyone help...

Your profile says MBP wit 10.6.8 which is Snow Leopard. So I assumed you knew what that was because it would have come with your computer. I don't know what more to tell you unless I know the exact MBP model you have and if you have the original installer discs that came with it.
The phrase should be read to mean the same as "a freshly prepped HDD." This entails:
Drive Partition and Format
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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. 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.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Note that you must be able to boot the computer from an installer disc such as a Snow Leopard DVD. A retail copy is available by:
You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.
This DVD will only work if your MBP does not require 10.63 or later, and this is determined by whether your MBP is from 2009 or earlier.
As an alternative you can purchase replacement discs for the computer from Apple:
Apple Store Customer Service at 1-800-676-2775 or visit online Help for more information.
To contact product and tech support: Apple - Support - Contact Apple Support.

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