Dead superdrive

[blacklite911]

Ok My superdrive on my 13 in 2008 macbook doesn't work. It just makes grinding noises and spits disks back out.
I know that it'll be cheaper and less of a hassle if I just buy an external dvd drive. Now my question is would I be able to boot from an external dvd drive? I'm looking to install windows via bootcamp AND just in case I have to do a system recovery I would like to be able to boot from the Leopard install disk.
thanks

 

[chscag]

I take it your MacBook is no longer under warranty? Have you tried to clean the drive with a cleaning kit? They're available from Best Buy, Radio Shack, Office Depot, and many other stores.

Yes, you can boot OS X from an external DVD drive. However, installing Windows from an external DVD drive is another matter. The problem you will run into trying to install Windows from an external drive is that the drive will not be recognized during the install process.

Regards.

 

[blacklite911]

Yes, my macbook is not under warranty anymore. Also, I did try the disk cleaner and it didn't work at all. especially for Data disks all it does is makes a grinding sounds and immediately spit it back out. I know the apple store will charge ridiculous amounts of money to repair so I'll just install it myself because my main goal is to install windows seven via bootcamp (I hope macs implement bootable windows usb in the future), don't worry I have skills, but I know macbook superdrives are unreasonably more expensive than comparable combo-drives and I'm lazy haha.

 

[blacklite911]

BREAKING NEWS, I just learned that I may be able to use rEFit to book windows 7 from the external dvd drive. w00t. I'll update when this happens