A1278 Unibody MacBook Reboot Cycle/Start up Issue

Greetings! *This is my first post and I would appriciate any help with this issue. *I just replaced the logic board in a Unibody MacBook A1278 and I am having some reboot issues. *The MacBook was originally a client's unit that was abandoned and was damaged by water. *Most of the components on the logic board were damaged or corroded so I replaced the logic board with a new one. *I have also upgraded the hard drive with a WD 750GB 7200 because the client requested the hard drive.

Currently, the MacBook does boot up to a white screen and has the question mark folder icon, which is expected, in the middle of the screen because it has no operating system. *All components check out, CPU fan spins, hard drive and SuperDrive spin up and the keyboard is working as expected. *The unit is also charging the battery for the MacBook fine through the mag port. *I performed a hardware reset on the system and formatted the hard drive to mac journaled before I started the OS install.

This is where the problem begins. *I put in the OS CD in the drive and hold down 'C' and nothing comes up but a white screen. *Still keeping my finger on "C" the unit then reboots and starts over again. *I can hear the CD drive spin up and searching and then it reboots. *Even without holding down the "C" button, the Mac does the same thing with the reboot. *I am going to only guess that the problem could ALSO be the Superdrive that is causing the issue. *I have yet to verify that as being the issue.

Any help or advice in clearing this issue would be greatly appreciated!

What OS CD are you using? Macs require either a retail version of OS X (Black with big X) or the exact DVD set that shipped with the machine. Any other boot disk will not work. Make sure you're using the correct media.

Chscag, thanks for your response! I just found that out the hard way! I decided to take my girlfriend's hard drive out of her beloved MacBook (with a little resistance from her) and transplant it into my machine and everything worked fine.

I was using her restore disks to revive the new machine. Luckily I do have a full version of the OS (as you mentioned) with a 5 user license that I've only used twice. For some reason I did remember that I had some issues before with using a set of restore disks that were the wrong ones and I thought the machine was defective. Like using the wrong keys to try to start a car!

Thanks again!