create bootable thumb drive from pc

hi,

my brother has given me his old macbook pro (2007 i believe) and it has no hard drive in it. he told me he was pretty sure that was the only problem with it, but before i go and buy a replacement, i want to make sure the rest of the computer is fine. i have an os x leopard disc and an 8gig thumb drive and want to make it bootable. the only problem is i use a pc. is there any programs or any way i can format my flash drive for mac and create a bootable os x from a pc?

thanks
wes

You are better off booting the mac from the leopard disk

insert he leopard disk and hold down the C key when you boot her up, if the macbook loads of the install disk then you can be sure the computer is oK

Hi westikle and welcome to M-F . . . .

In Short NO . . . . .When trying to mount OS X it mounts as a .dmg and because OS X cant run on windows it cant be done... I have searched around and IF the .dmg isnt a Mac Native App/Program then there is some windows software out there can can change the .dmg to a .iso file, but not a OS

You will be needing a Mac to be able to put the OS on the thumb drive, so put the disk in and boot from the Leopard disk ....

But for more info Google ....... DMG unpack windows and you will see what i mean

Cheers

There's a number of different options here - most notably simply booting from the OS X disc (assuming it's compatible with the machine - non-Intel versions may not be).

Aside from that, you can use the Windows machine to create an Ubuntu Live CD. Or even boot the machine from a Windows disc.

jesus i'm an idiot. thanks everyone for the tip. i've turned it on now but the screen isn't working. guess i'm moving on to the next problem. thanks again!

shouldn't the screen still come on with no hard drive installed?

westikle said:

jesus i'm an idiot. thanks everyone for the tip. i've turned it on now but the screen isn't working. guess i'm moving on to the next problem. thanks again!

shouldn't the screen still come on with no hard drive installed?

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Yes, during the power-on self-test, you should get a gray screen and eventually an icon indicating there are no boot devices. Try attaching to an external display to see if you're getting video at all.

westikle said:

jesus i'm an idiot.

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Always remember there is no silly/stupid questions only silly/stupid answers ;P

westikle said:

shouldn't the screen still come on with no hard drive installed?

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Yes it should come on. Are you getting anything at all ?? Chimes ??

yes it chimes and the disc drive spins, but no screen. don't know if it matters but the battery is super low and the computer has been sitting in a near freezing room.

Well a low battery isnt going to help the situation as well as freezing conditions. . . . Might be a  Thing to keep the display off if its that low ... Dont quote me, just throwing it out there

And as cwa posted ^^ Try connecting it to another display and see what you get

no dice. i hooked up my desktop monitor to it and still no display. i don't know anything about a mac but is there some kind of beep or something to indicate a hardware failure?

Hmm Well no graphics could mean ~ Graphics Card is gone ?? Just guessing here.

You can do a hardware test via the install DVD but since you cant see what is going on that would seem useless

You mentioned that the HDD has been removed. I would be now unhooking everything, and opening this sucker up. When the HDD was removed, whoever removed it could of, not knowingly broken a wire, touch something they shouldnt have or broken something they shouldnt have while removing the HDD .. Open it up and have a real good look around as this seems to be the end of my knowledge of trouble shooting this problem . . .

Dont fret though as someone else could pop in with a obvious answer we have both over looked.
But have a look inside and see what you can see

Cheers

so i called my brother to ask if he ever had any problems with the display and i get the whole truth. he had spilled something on the keyboard. now i know this changes everything but, here's the full story anyway (according to him.) he says he was studying for midterms and since he can't smoke in his dorm he was dipping instead. somehow he managed to knock his spit cup on the the keyboard. yeah i know it's nasty. he had to removed some of the keys to clean it out but i'm not really sure how many. it's really clean now and you would never know it had tobaccoey spit all in it at one point. he said it still worked fine for a few days then eventually started acting funny and at one point wouldn't even turn on. it was under warranty (actually i think homeowners insurance covered it) so now he has a new macbook pro. he removed the hard drive out of the old one to try to recover data but had no luck with two different sata adapters or whatever they are called. this is why he assumed it was just the hard drive gone bad. he was surprised to hear that it even chimes when turned on. now i have looked all over this thing with a magnifying glass trying to find something wrong but i can't find anything. my brother says he didn't have to clean anything other than the keyboard and doesn't think his spit made it any further into the computer. spit is afterall very thick and i can't see it just rushing through intricate parts myself. you may or may not be able to discern anything from this but i do have one question. is it possible that a damaged keyboard could cause the screen not to work and there not be anything wrong with the rest of the computer?

thanks
wes


don't dip over your macbook. don't dip anyway it's nasty.

I'd pass on this one personally. It's like a car that's been nearly totaled or submerged in water. It may run fine, then again it may crap out when you need it most. Either way, no one is going to stand behind it after fixing it. Use it for target practice and video record it for posterity.

Wes, she be dead big time. Liquids and electronics are not a good mix!

i've been researching and am thinking that maybe this is one of the models with the faulty nvidia gpu. it is the 15" santa rosa model number A1226. maybe the time of death and spit cup incident are just coincidental. perhaps?

Liquid damage (including disgusting spit cup damage) will void the warranty, even if it was one of the faulty nvidea chips with the extended warranty.

there may not be any liquid damage is what i'm saying. how could someone tell if it is liquid damage? wouldn't it still be worth a shot?

westikle said:

there may not be any liquid damage is what i'm saying. how could someone tell if it is liquid damage? wouldn't it still be worth a shot?

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There are liquid intrusion sensor stickers inside the case. With that said, it does sound remarkably like the GPU failure issue. I guess it couldn't hurt to ask, but I would not be disingenuous either - tell them up front that a little bit of liquid spilled on the keyboard and see what they say.

For the record, removing the hard drive from a pre-unibody MBP is a time-intensive, warranty-voiding, BIG job. It's not something someone "good with a screwdriver" knocks out in 20 minutes. If someone did remove the hard drive, they would have been silly to put it all back together without one.

I would hardly call removing 15 screws a BIG job. I must be in the wrong line of work. But the hard drive was removed to try and recover data from it. If removing the hard drive does indeed void any warranty, am I safe in assuming I'm wasting my time even if it is a faulty gpu?