MacBook Pro restore, somehow the Mac hd disc was replaced with install DVD

I'm having some difficulties in getting my restore to go smoothly. Here is basically what is currently happening.....

Okay, so here is basically step by step of what I'm doing. I'm at the install Mac OS X menu, it asks me to select the disk I want to install it on but there are no disks listed. I click on disk utility and where it should say Mac HD on the left, it says Mac OS X install DVD. It will not let me repair, erase or restore the disk. When I try to add a new image, it says unable to create cannot allocate memory. When I try to make a new blank image, it says error -61. I'm at a complete loss. The only thing I can think of is if there is a link to a source that will restore the original hard drive disk...does this ring a bell for anyone?

Based upon your post above it's likely your hard drive has failed, or possibly the cable connecting it to the logic board. Why were you trying to reinstall OS X, wasn't your MacBook Pro booting? What MacBook Pro do you have?

Since Disk Utility does not even recognize that there is a hard drive in the machine, the possibilities include:

The hard drive is dead
The cable has become disconnected from the HD
The cable is bad
The drive controller on the system board has died

Info required:
What Mac is this?
What OS X disc are you using?
Why &/or how you came to the point of reinstalling the OS.

edit:
lol

Re:

I was actually downgrading to snow leopard from mountain lion, and had erased the hard drive so I could start anew.
This is the 13 inch MacBook Pro that was previously running mountain lion obviously, but I am now using the snow leopard install DVD.

I think somehow by using the install DVD, it erased what should have been the hard drive. Is there a way to reset a default hard drive at this point?

I apologize as I have no know how of computers.

Hunterw333 said:

CLIP...

I apologize as I have no know how of computers.

Click to expand...

What you are trying is a somewhat difficult task. Having little experience will make this more adventuresome.

Boot from the install disk, click on the apple icon on the top LEFT and tell us what it says there under "About This Mac."

Along with that information, can you tell us why you want to go back two versions of the software? What color are the SL discs? (Yes, that's important.) Did the machine previously have SL on it? Do you have backups of the drive before it got wiped? Is the backup bootable?

EDIT: Top LEFT

Re:

At the point I am at, everything under the apple tab is inaccessible. The disks are the grey ones, and yes SL was originally on the machine. What I believe has happened is I accidentally restored the install DVD on the hard drive while erasing the contents.

I'm downgrading because someone else had installed mountain lion without my knowledge and I do not have access to their apple Id.

I stored all my basic files on an external hard drive but that was all.

I am currently in terminal trying to repartition the drive but I have come to this issue....

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/...8-5514-4f1b-ace9-21e1f95266e3_zps1aba03a2.jpg

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/...a-bdd8-42f0-bcf8-a81a0f7fcc93_zps73868645.jpg

Be very careful in Terminal. If you don't know what you are doing you can do a lot of damage. When you boot from the CD there should be a menu item at the top for Utilities. From there you can get to Disk Utility, which you can use to repartition and reformat the hard drive. Make one GUID partition, then you can let the CD install the os for you.

If you have somehow copied the DVD onto the HD, then to get it to boot from the CD and not the HD image, hold the Option key as the system is booting and you should get the options to boot from the DVD. If the system boots from the image on the HD, you cannot make changes to the HD as OSX does not permit changes to the boot drive.

Re:

Okay we'll I've gotten as far as booting from the install DVD. Now that I'm in disk utility, it still will not let me create a new image. What could I be doing wrong?

In DU, if you can see the drive in the left column, select it and in the right window you should see a bar of actions--"First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID and Restore." Select Partition and partition the drive as one partition with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, then click the Apply button. That will create and format ONE partition on the HD into which you will install the system.

Re:

That seems to have worked. Thank you very much, really appreciate all the help. I'll have snow leopard back in about 35 minutes.

But don't worry, I will return if I have anymore issues.