Question Im a PC, not a Mac. And I need help. OSX fresh install

[bdizzle11]

I am currently in the process of upgrading my sisters old macbook (late 2009) 13", just a basic ram and hard drive upgrade. After formatting the hard drive I placed it in and put in the old leopard disc to reinstall that before purchasing and downloading the snow leopard upgrade. Everything was smooth sailing until I began the install, it almost immediately gave me an error, "Install failed, mac os x could not be installe don your computer. Unknown error blah blah blah".
I read up on what this means and did the checks that I found. My hard drive is correctly formatted, it is "verified", the computer recognizes it. But it just wont install. I did try to run the repair hard drive thing from disk utility and it gives me "the disk "main" could not be unmounted". I could not find a fix to this online. When I just hit verify though it gives me no errors and says it appears to be ok.
What is the problem with installing Leopard from this disk onto the hard drive? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Im just about fed up with MACs at this point. Thanks!

 

[JustSomeJoe]

Have you tried partitioning and formatting using the utilities menu in the OS X Installer?

 

[ram1009]

Knowing Apple's proprietary nature they may have rigged the BIOS to require you to return the computer to them for this installation. Would that really surprise anyone?

 

[ss202sl]

Could there be an issue with the new ram? What if you try installing with the old ram in the machine?

 

[Ijack]

How did you format the disk? On a PC? Macs use a different partitioning scheme (and a different filesystem) than PCs. You must create and format the partition using the OS X tools.

 

[COLGeek]

Also, not all Mac's (even Intel based Mac's) will run the most recent version of OS X. What specific version are you using?

What specific error are you getting?

Need help? Go here:

http://www.apple.com/support/lion/installrecovery/

 

[womble]

The OSX installer is usually pretty much set it running and go. The disk tools can be a little confusing I guess as there are a few options mainly for managing extra drives and stuff. It is usually pretty straight forward though, just name it format it as Mac OS extended journaled and go.

If the old setup is fine it is really easy to run something free like super duper to transfer everything to the new disk and swap out.

 

[DarkOutlaw]

Step 1: Drop mac book into pool
Step 2: Buy PC
Step 3: Enjoy!

 

[wavetrex]

Macs need GPT (Guid Partition Table) to function.

Windows Vista/7 knows that, so simply enter Computer Management/Disk Management and on your disk select the option (with right click) - Convert to GPT Disk.

Don't create any partitions... just leave it that. It should work (theoretically)

 

[Ijack]

But why use Windows at all to prepare the disk? Just put it in the Mac and let OS X prepare the disk - far simpler all round.

 

[bdizzle11]

How did you format the disk? On a PC? Macs use a different partitioning scheme (and a different filesystem) than PCs. You must create and format the partition using the OS X tools.

I formatted my disk using another Mac and a USB external drive. I had to go this route because my Leopard CD would not allow me to format my new disk, which appears to be a known problem with Leopard and OSX. It should be correctly partitioned there was no problems with that while setting it up and now when I do the install it gets recognized perfectly as an HFS+ drive.

 

[Ijack]

UI've never had a problem partitioning and formating a disk using Leopard. It's possible that there is some hardware problem with the Mac. It may be time to get it checked by someone familiar with Apple hardware.

I take it you are using the install disk that came with the Mac, not one bought of eBay? OS X disks, other than retail ones, are specific to the hardware they are supplied with.

 

[JustSomeJoe]

It isn't just a case of GPT Partitioning and HFS+ formatting, the installer will also try to create a (hidden and protected) EFI Partition.

 

[jsrudd]

If you're only upgrading to snow leopard you can buy the physical media. It's only Lion (and Mountain Lion) that must be purchased digitally.

 

[Houndsteeth]

I formatted my disk using another Mac and a USB external drive. I had to go this route because my Leopard CD would not allow me to format my new disk, which appears to be a known problem with Leopard and OSX. It should be correctly partitioned there was no problems with that while setting it up and now when I do the install it gets recognized perfectly as an HFS+ drive.

Your problem isn't Mac-related. It's most likely the hardware you chose to use to format the internal drive, if I am guessing correctly. I'm guessing you uninstalled the hard drive from the MacBook and installed it in an external USB case. The USB case uses a bridge adapter to translate USB serial communication to native ATA calls to the drive. It also has its own particular scheme to formatting the sectors, and they usually aren't compatible with native ATA controllers, especially where boot sectors are concerned.

One way around this issue is to connect the drive directly to the SATA controller on the other Mac and formatting the drive that way. If you go this route, you will have to install Mac OS X to be used on any hardware configuration, especially if you are using a Macintosh that has different hardware than your target, since it will only install kernel extensions particular to the hardware it sees. Selecting a universal install will make sure all the possible kernel extensions are installed instead.

If your sister's MacBook is actually a MacBook Pro (and has a FireWire port) you can instead boot the machine into Target Disk mode by holding down the "T" key during boot. Then, connect the two Macs together using a FireWire drive and reformat and install the OS.