Mac OS X reinstall after hardware failiure

Helloooo.

Been searching for stuff all day to no luck.

My hard drive recently decided to break itself. I have a 13.3 white macbook, the version before they added dvd play keys to the keyboard, and have bought a new 160gb hard drive and installed it.

Thing is, it went through repairs a while ago, and the reseller that repaired it messed things up so i persuaded them to throw in an upgrade to leopard. Now my hard drive is knackerd.

I don't have the leopard install files, and my tiger disks are away at uni and i can't get to them for a few weeks. I borrowed my brothers leopard discs from his new model white macbook, but they don't work. Just says cannot be installed on this computer.

I understand this may be cause his discs won't work on my comp. I'm desperate to get my mac working again. Is there any work around for this? Maybe if i install off a hard drive if i put the install files on that?

Hoping someone can help and i only have windows to work on to prepare any install files.

Absolutely desperate, nearest apple store is a couple hours away and i really can't wait.

Thanks,
Ryan

The reason your brother's copy of Leopard won't work is because it's meant to be installed on ONLY that specific machine. This is to help prevent people from installing it on multiple computers.

I would say your either going to have to wait until you get your hands on your Tiger discs back or just borrow your brother's computer for the time being?

Ah, that's what i was worried about. My brother isn't around at the moment. 2 weeks using windows might actually kill me.

I have a friend who has exactly the same model macbook as me. Are her tiger install discs likely to work on my mac?

Maybe but doing so would be breaking the end user license agreement and be against the law (installing the same piece of commercial software on more computers than the license permits is piracy).

I know this is of little consolation at this point but the upgrade to Leopard should have been accompanied with restore discs for situations like this.

Is there anyway to have your Tiger discs couriered to you? You could probably get them in a few days max.

Suggest purchasing Leopard and using Disk Utility whilst booted from that. Start with verify disk, Repair Disk and see if you can revive the drive. if no joy a clean install on another drive. I do not think you will be happy going back to Tiger now.

I booted up from the leopard disc i have with the broken drive, disk utility doesn't even recognize that it exists, so i guess that's a lost cause.

Not happy about purchasing leopard given that i was already given it as an authorised upgrade by a reseller after a massive mess us with repairs. Guess i'll try get my tiger disks shipped to me, and then go back in and cause some hassle for the reseller and get them to upgrade me again when i'm next back that way.