A friend of mine is experiencing her Macbook (not sure of the particular vintage) starting to get wonky on her, and apparently a consult with Apple support has indicated that "reloading the OS" is the only solution. She's lost her OS X media and, not wanting to spend any $$$, is disinclined to take it to the Apple store. She's apparently running 10.4.11. I happen to have 10.5.5 media. Can I help her out or no?
I would think your OSX CD will work. Legal? Who cares, just do it. The Apple Corporation is no less evil than Microsoft, so stick it to 'em.
The circumstances are pretty exigent... I'm comfortable worrying about legalities after she's up and running. I just don't want to tell her I can fix it if I can't.
I really, really can't imagine that the CD is hard coded to the machine somehow. It really seems like it SHOULD work...
Super. If it doesn't work, I'm blaming you. Edit: It's all academic. Latest info indicates fried HD. Thanks anyway.
Wrong. It isn't hard coded to the machine--but it is often specific to the series. For example, and older Mac OS disk from a Macbook generally won't work on a new Macbook. A disk for a Macbook generally won't work on an iMac. etc.
Will it work? Maybe. You really need to know what the "vintage" is. Does it actually say MacBook, or is it a PowerBook? If it says MacBook it should work fine with your media. If it's a PowerBook, I believe the 10.5 upgrade dropped support for some very old PowerBooks.
It's a PowerBook G4, apparently... And now it sounds like it might not be a HD issue... (Just between you and me, I'm kind of hoping you'll tell me 10.5.5 won't work so I don't have to get myself more involved than I already am.)
Well, it's your lucky day. YOUR 10.5.5 DVD will most certainly not work on a PowerBook G4. BTW, if she has AppleCare there would not be any charge for going to the store. There might not be any charge anyway. They're pretty cool like that.
Ohhhh... Uh... Darrrrrrrrrn. I wish I could, uh, like, help or whatever. Seriously... Shucks! Yeah, I think she's SOL on that... I got AppleCare for my MacBook... Little pricey, but I figure it's one of those "If you ever need it's almost certainly worth it" sorts of deals. Anyway, hopefully when she hits the "Genius Bar" tomorrow, she can get a little weepy and they'll take pity on her.
1) I am running 10.5.6 on a 2004 iBook G4 2) The Apple OS X system disk that I received with my MacBook Core 2 Duo last July is not machine specific. It is the same system disk as the one I purchased separately to update my iBook.
I think I'm gonna go with Kent on this one... But simply because it saves me work, not because I don't believe you.
Correct. A new machine series will come with a certain dot build to support that. i.e. a 10.4.3 disc from a white Macbook may not work in the most recent Macbook Pro. Whachoo talkin' about, Willis? Specs page says any Mac with a G4 > 867 MHz. There's one way to find out. Put your Leopard disc in the drive, and power up holding down the C button to boot off the CD. If that works, and the internal hard drive is visible, attach an external HD to it PDQ and save the data! Everything else can be reinstalled. P.S. Jesse FTW in post #2!
I'm not saying that a PowerBook G4 won't run 10.5.5 by any means. And if Slappy's DVD is actually a *generic* 10.5.5 DVD, it will work fine. But Apple seems to alternate between providing a generic DVD and one that's only got a build for that specific system. Without seeing the disc, I can't tell the difference. Besides, Slap didn't want it to work anyway.
Doh! (slaps forehead). It didn't occur to me that the disc he'd have would be the one that came with his Macbook Pro, and not a retail Leopard disc. Yeah, she must not be a hot babe.
Tell her to go into the apple store during the week when they are not very busy. More than likely they will have an O/S disk for her version. They are pretty good about helping out without looking for generating big money from her. I installed 10.5.6 on my iBook G4. It does not run as quickly as it did before. Though I like 10.5.6 so slower is ok.
Actually she kinda is... But she's a good friend of mine and I knew if I got involved at all that it'd be an "awake until 5:00AM trying to figure out this problem that I stand a good chance of being completely unable to fix anyway" kind of situation. And who needs one of those? (No matter how hot the girl is? )
Oh, yeah? Show me where they ask which Mac you have when you buy the new version of OS X: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC094Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDAzOA&mco=MzgxMDgwNQ Every DVD has the "hardware drivers" for the previous Macs. The only gotcha is I think I herard that Apple announced dropping support for non-Intel Macs. But not now: It's got to be a pain to maintain both code branches for both CPU familes.
Yes, Yeah, Mike. The exception are the disks you buy from Apple like that. He wasn't talking about that. He was talking about the disks that *CAME* with his Mac. I deal with this often, and I can tell you, that the mac disks being specific to a series is a constant pain in the ass for us. They might say "Macbook" on them but they don't say *WHICH* Macbook. So you have to rotate through 12 "Macbook" disks before you find the one for *THAT* Macbook.
Sure. It's not nearly as convenient as the Windows PC that NEVER comes with a copy of Windows. Maybe, in the old days, if you were lucky, you got a "restore" disk which puts back the three years ago pre-576 updates version of Windows with the 56 copies of bundled crapware - that will only load on the original hardware with the original, virgin hard disk. Gotta fight piracy, ya know.
Yeah, but in an office/enterprise scenario (which is about the only instance in which the scenario Jesse describes really matters), you can slam an XP/Vista disc into any PC and it'll do what you want it to.
You can do the same with one of the generic OS X discs... Dunno why Jesse doesn't have one of those lying around.
