Reformatting and Reinstall problems on older macbook

I have one of the first macbooks that Apple released in 2006, and I want to reformat the HD and reinstall OS X to get a clean slate. In this case, I still have the original installation discs (which are for Tiger). However, I'm running into problems when I try to use the installation discs that came with the laptop to reinstall OS X. The DVD drive recognizes the disc correctly, and I can open it and select install OS X, but when the computer restarts to begin the installation process, it ejects the disc and then just boots from the HD.

I've tried restarting with the disc in the drive and holding down C. The disc ejects and the computer boots up from the HD.

I've tried holding down the option key when booting up to try to manually select booting from the install disc. The disc ejects and the computer only shows me the HD option.

I've tried to run a hardware test by inserting the install disc, restarting the computer, and holding down D. The disc ejects and the computer boots from the HD. I also tried to run the test by just booting up the computer without the install disc in the DVD drive and holding down D, but the computer just booted up normally.

I did upgrade my to Leopard using a universal install disc, and I'm currently running 10.5.8. I get the same exact result when trying to use the Leopard disc to reinstall OS X.

Can someone help me figure out what's going on and how to fix this problem? I'm at the end of my rope.

You need a new optical drive. Yours is failing to properly read the disk and instead ejecting them. The life expectancy of slot loading drives which Apple uses is much shorter than the tray loaders on PCs and external drives.

Since that machine is a 2006 model, you might be better off buying an inexpensive external USB optical drive and using it instead.

If you have another mac and a firewire cable put the disk in that mac, boot that mac holding t with the firewire cable connected to both machines and boot that macbook holding option. You should be able to see the disk that is in the other mac and install t that way.

chscag said:

You need a new optical drive. Yours is failing to properly read the disk and instead ejecting them. The life expectancy of slot loading drives which Apple uses is much shorter than the tray loaders on PCs and external drives.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. Is it possible for a failing optical drive to only read certain types of DVDs successfully? Because it can still properly recognize what's on the disc when I already have it booted up, and it can still read other types of DVDs--for instance, DVD movies still play perfectly.

rabbitjetta said:

If you have another mac and a firewire cable put the disk in that mac, boot that mac holding t with the firewire cable connected to both machines and boot that macbook holding option. You should be able to see the disk that is in the other mac and install t that way.

Click to expand...

I have a macbook pro, so I could try this--what type of firewire cable will I need to connect the two?

What model of mac book pro do you have and what macbook?

rabbitjetta said:

What model of mac book pro do you have and what macbook?

Click to expand...

Macbook Pro is MacBookPro7,1.
Macbook is Macbook1,1.

Let me know if you need any more info.

you need this http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002TF0ZDQ/?tag=macforums0e4-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XQILO8/?tag=macforums0e4-20

Ok, so I ordered the firewire cable and successfully hooked up the macbook pro to the older macbook and booted my mbp on my mb. However, when I put the install disc into the mbp and clicked restart to install on the install menu for the disc, the mbp booted up on the mb but spit the disc out before booting, just like it did on my mb! Anyone know why this is happening? It can't be an optical drive failure, because the drive on my mbp works perfectly (it's a new machine). It's got to be something else.

So did you use target disk mode to boot the other machine off of?