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Hey guys, my bro in law bought an Apple laptop(i don't know the specs yet but i can find out if needed) so he asked me to format it because its a used laptop but i never played around with Mac Operating Systems, what would i need to do a format and fresh install ? Can i just download Mac OS 9 or whatever version there is out there now and just boot it up like Windows and reboot the laptop?
The OS isnt free so hopefully you have a friend with a disk or something. Just put the cd in and hold the "C" key when turning it on to boot of the cdrom drive.
You need to give a few more specs on the laptop.
If the notebook is Pre "MacBook" then it is running on the PowerPC processor. If it is a MacBook, or MacBook Pro, then it is running on the Intel Chipset.
Mac OS(whatever) are not opensource, so as for a free download, I'm afraid you might be out of luck, for 'legal' options. As for illegal, well, be our guest.
I'm a graphic designer, with a PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.4.9 "Tiger". Apple is waiting for the iPhone to be released before they unveil OS X 10.5 "Leopard" in October. From what I can tell from Apple's website, http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard, you will need the Intel chipset in order to take advantage of the 64 bit OS. AFAIK the PowerPC chipsets are 32 bit.
Like Oofki said, just put the cdrom in, reboot, and after the "BONG" sound, hold the "C" key down until it does something. If that doesnt work, open the cd inside the OS, and read the "read-me". Apple is very good at putting in directions for even the dumbest of computer users, no offense intended. My mom, although shes running XP home, could use an apple without too much of a problem, if she just read Apples instructions and help files.
Hope this helps :-)
I so want a macbook. Actually, I would have prefered the G5 mac. Alas, I must settle for intel. Its such a shame one of the best features of the macs was the amazing battery life. Then they switched to intel and it dropped to average.
I didn't realize the battery life was so bad since they switched. Macbooks should get good battery life but I could see a g5 not. A g5 has a lot more "power"