Anyone own a Mac? - Install DVD won't boot

[Ben Stones]

Edit: Seems I deleted an OEM partition (hidden) from the hard drive on the Mac and that's whats causing it not to boot. I've just purchased Snow Leopard Mac Box Set (this is the one you'll need if you have Tiger installed and for those that don't have Leopard - at £129/$169 approx.) - and booted and installed fine (obviously since it was a retail disc) .

I have 2 gray DVD discs that came with my (older) 2006 Core Solo Mac Mini and I decided I wanted a reinstall so I poppped in DVD 1, rebooted Mac and for some reason it wouldn't boot automatically (normally it boots into the installation screen immediately without having to hold the C key down) so I had to press the C key at bootup to force it to run from disc drive.

Basically no matter how many times I try it stays on the Apple splash screen with the spinning icon underneath and I've even tried keeping it like that for 30 minutes to no avail. I thought it might be partition related so I installed Ubuntu (on the complete HD) and retried - same problem except this time it boots from the DVD automatically to the annoying continual spinning icon as before.

Right now I have Windows 7 installed as a temporary alternative and I've tried a PRAM reset and Hardware Test to "no troubles found" (I've also done an extended test too). The interesting thing is when I had OS X before I wiped it over with Ubuntu I could see the contents of the installation DVD so the DVD definitely is not faulty. And obviously, I can install other operating systems fine so the disc drive isn't broken either.

Any ideas?

[WelshTom]

I have 2 gray DVD discs that came with my (older) 2006 Core Solo Mac Mini and I decided I wanted a reinstall so I poppped in DVD 1, rebooted Mac and for some reason it wouldn't boot automatically (normally it boots into the installation screen immediately without having to hold the C key down) so I had to press the C key at bootup to force it to run from disc drive.

Basically no matter how many times I try it stays on the Apple splash screen with the spinning icon underneath and I've even tried keeping it like that for 30 minutes to no avail. I thought it might be partition related so I installed Ubuntu (on the complete HD) and retried - same problem except this time it boots from the DVD automatically to the annoying continual spinning icon as before.

Right now I have Windows 7 installed as a temporary alternative and I've tried a PRAM reset and Hardware Test to "no troubles found" (I've also done an extended test too). The interesting thing is when I had OS X before I wiped it over with Ubuntu I could see the contents of the installation DVD so the DVD definitely is not faulty. And obviously, I can install other operating systems fine so the disc drive isn't broken either.

Any ideas?

Format the drive to Apple's file system (HFS+ preferably) and then try again. If you've upgraded the hardware recently, you'll need to update the firmware I believe.

[Ben Stones]

Format the drive to Apple's file system (HFS+ preferably) and then try again. If you've upgraded the hardware recently, you'll need to update the firmware I believe.

Thanks for replying.

How would I format the hard drive to HFS+ without OS X on it? (and same for the firmware update?) - the only hardware upgrade is the memory to 2GB (a week ago) and afterwards that's when I tried reinstalling Tiger, if that's any coincidence.

[WelshTom]

Thanks for replying.

How would I format the hard drive to HFS+ without OS X on it? (and same for the firmware update?) - the only hardware upgrade is the memory to 2GB (a week ago) and afterwards that's when I tried reinstalling Tiger, if that's any coincidence.

As far as I know, the install discs are only supposed to work with the original hardware, unless they're retail versions.

You'll need to use some sort of hard drive formatting tool which runs independently to the operating system (the software you find should boot from a CD you copy it to), and then format the drive.

[Ben Stones]

I initially thought it was partition related, and seems I deleted the hidden OEM partition (typically me ) that makes the grey discs work - and obviously when I took my mini to an authorised service provider they tested a Snow Leopard retail disc and it booted into it fine. Bought SL Mac Box Set, took about 30-40 minutes for install, if not less...definitely was quite quick. Glad its sorted now .

[DPS Computing]

Ah, the deleting of the OEM partition seems quite critical here .

I think thats why they probably hide it - so you don't tinker with it!

Glad its all sorted now.