I need to re-format my late-2009 iMac but I've been looking around the house and I can't seem to find my installation CDs. I was wondering if it would be possible to use my Lion installation CDs that came the Macbook Pro I bought last week? If not, what are my other options? Buying a new copy of Leopard or Lion?
Thanks!
First question would be, why you need to reformat?
This is not usually needed on Macs unless you are having serious problems that can't be corrected without a reinstall of the OS.
No, you can't use your MBP disks on your iMac. One option is to create a bootable Lion OS disk/USB drive. This requires purchase of Lion from the APP Store (if you are currently running Snow Leopard on your iMac you can download the upgrade/installer directly). Directions available if you decide to go that route.
Your other option is to pop for the Snow Leopard disks. I would probably go that route, and this time make sure you have some place set aside to store your OS disks.
EDIT: Did you really get Lion installation CDs with your MBP? I was not aware of any new machines that are shipping with the OS on physical media other than the MacPro.
