New Hard Drive -- MBP won't boot from disc

I'm hoping you all can help me.

I've got an MBP (approx 2008 - with removable battery). Had an issue where the keyboard and trackpad would not work.

Tried single user mode, scm, pram, etc with no change. I then tried re-installing OSX but could not get the computer to book from the disc.

I took it to the Apple store and a "genius" booted from a network drive into OSX and the keyboard/trackpad worked perfectly. He then ran a disc scan and said that the hard drive had some bad sectors. They wanted well over 200 for a 320GB replacement. I decided that since the hard drive is right next to the battery (and easily accessible) that I would do it myself. I'm pretty tech savvy, have built several computers, write software professionally etc, so of course I thought it would be as easy as popping in the new disc and booting from the CD in order to format/reinstall OSX.

I've got the new hard drive installed, and when I try to boot (while holding c) I just get the flashing folder with a question mark on it. I then restarted while holding the option key. It gives me the CD as a bootable item. I click it (while holding command+v and while not holding any keys) but it just goes to a white screen.

Any ideas? It's obviously reading the CD just fine if it sees it as a boot option. I am out of ideas.

Thanks in advance.

It sounds like you're using the wrong disk to boot your computer. A MBP of 2008 vintage should have come with Leopard (10.5) or maybe even Tiger if it was an early 2008 model. Those disks would have been gray - silver in color and come as a set of two.

Which disk are you using to boot the machine? It has to either be the original disk or a later version of OS X on a retail disk. Disks that are specific for another model Mac will not work and give the symptom you described.

This is a friends computer so i may have misspoken on the year. The disc is gray. It says OSX 10.4.6

Not sure on the MBP year, it has the magsafe plug but a removable battery.

Thanks.

You might want to ask him if he gave you the correct disk to boot the machine with. The disk you have is Tiger 10.4.6. You can verify the year and model by clicking on the Apple menu and selecting "About this Mac".

The machine won't boot so I can't see anything about it.

I just talked to her. She does have an older macbook (not pro) so i'm thinking these discs are from that machine.

thanks for the info! i will follow up with whether or not that solves the problem.