Installing Leopard!

[asadeddin]

Hey guys,

I'm wondering, can I install Leopard from another mac CD. I cannot find my Leopard CD and I'm running Tiger right now. My sister has her Mac CDs that came with her mac. Do you think I would be able to install it from hers? Thanks!

[philbowell]

Nope, well at least not to my knowledge. The DVD's that come with other Macs are builds tailored towards the machine they came with. Apart from anything else it would be illegal.

[baseballboy828]

I'm sure you could do it with a retail copy. I'm not sure about a copy that came with a mac. houltmac? Your infinite Mac repair expertise is needed!

[asadeddin]

It's ok I found the CD. But I was wondering, I installed Leopard but I thought it would clear everything off. Now I'm thinking of wiping everything off, but not sure how to do so. If I've got the 1 license CD. What should I do?

[houltmac]

1. Which disks work
In short you can't mix the grey OS disks that came with a machine. You can't use a grey OS disk from a Mac mini to install on a MacBook for example. You can't even use one that came with one model of MacBook to install on another model of MacBook. Most of the time it won't boot, or won't give you the option to install, but if it does you will have issues with things like Airport and so on.

You can use a retail copy of Leopard on any machine that came with Tiger or earlier. If your machine came with Leopard then it won't boot to a retail disk, which means you would have to buy a double disk set from Apple for more than the price of just the OS (since it comes with all the other stuff like iLife etc.).

All in it's quite simple - use the disks your machine came with unless you are upgrading to a newer OS in which case you need retail disks. While this isn't 100% true I'd stick to it and never deviate personally. It's too much hassle to sort out using the wrong OS later and should be simple enough for people to follow.

If you require replacement OS disks for your machine (eg. you lost your two grey Leopard disks from a newer machine so you can't use a retail copy of Leoaprd) then call your countries standard AppleCare number. They will sell you the disks directly (AASPs can't sadly) for around 150-200% of the price of the current OS retail box.

2. Installation and licensing
My understanding of the license is that it allows one installation (or instance of an installation) on any Mac at any one time. As such, using a disk to wipe a drive and re-install is fine. There is no copy protection or anything on any of Apples OS disks anyway so if you have a MacBook that came with 10.4 and your sister has a Mac mini that came with 10.4, you have lost your 10.5 retail disk but did buy it, while she also has a copy which she has used to upgrade her machine you can just borrow her disk since it will work and you have a license.

Oh, and there is a family pack license for up to 5 machines, but I don't think we need to go there.

Hope that all makes sense. Did I miss anything or balls it up at all?

[asadeddin]

I actually found the CD, but I thought after installing it would wipe the whole system but it didn't. I want to wipe the entire system, I was thinking of using the 10.4 that came with my mac, then using the 10.5 I bought. But would it work using the same 10.5 again?

[houltmac]

You can wipe the drive and install just using the Leopard retail disk if your machine originally came with Tiger yes.