mamoon2

I've lost my installation disk for one of our macs in the office and having trouble getting replacements from Apple.

Does anyone know where I can get one or would anyone be kind enough to lend me one?

Markus

I am going to assume you are not referring to Mac OS 7.1, rather you are referring to the 20" v7.1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHzb mac, in other works, one of the recent ones.

If so then it'll be running Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) or Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). I doubt you'll be able to get a Leopard retail version these days as it's been superceded by Snow Leopard, but you should be able to purchase a retail version of Snow Leopard.

If you already have a retail version of Leopard or Snow Leopard then you could technically install it onto the iMac, obviously one could argue this is illegal.

Apple should be able to supply install disks for fairly recent machines however so they shouldn't be causing problems. Have you got any other machines of the same type, if so, then their OS install disks should work on the iMac as they are the same model. There isn't a license key in OS X (well, there is for OS X Server, but not for the client version of the OS) so there isn't a technical problem with using the disk from a same model machine on another machine of the same type. Again, it's not technically legal, but no checking goes on, and if it's the same type of machine I don't see any real problem in doing this.

mamoon2

Thanks for the reply Marcus,

Yes I did mean the iMac version 7.1.

I've got a version of Snow Leopard but this does not offer the option of doing an erase and re-install.

Basically we want to do a wipe and re-install but don't have the disks.

Funny thing is, we have a 9.1 and 2 x 8.1 machines but these install disks don't work. This is becoming a pain in the backside for us as we have a machine we can't use.

i'll keep on at Apple, thanks anyway

Markus

Ok, if you have a bootable DVD of Snow Leopard and all you want to do is blow the machine away then try this:

1) Boot machine from SL DVD.

2) When you get to the installer screen have a look at the menus across the top, there should be a "Utilities" menu, under this should be Disk Utility, using this you should be able to select the Hard Drive and erase it. You can then Quit Disk Utility and then simply use the easy install option which will be installing onto a clean disk.

It does not surprise me in the least that 9.1 and 8.1 install disks don't work. 1) the machines will be a previous architecture (68k or PowerPC) and the iMac is Intel based and simply cannot run those versions of the OS.

mamoon2

Thanks!

That worked a treat!

You're a legend!