Install Snow Leopard without dvd, without another Mac

Do you have any suggestion other than buy an external dvd-drive ? I did not use dvd for years, external usb drives are more suitables for my needs..

I have a new machine, the MacBook AIr (no dvd), but why do i have to scrap the older one ??? It can be useful for other member of my family !!!

I already have plenty of DVD-drive on/and from old PCs, they never broke like those on the Mac. Why should i spend anymore money for something i've already paid for ?

"Plain ol' external DVD drives are cheap. Like under $20 for many. I'm sure you could afford one. Plus it would be needed by whoever uses the older Mac to reinstall the OS, or other software only available on disks. So get one. Your older Mac is fairly useless with a broken drive."

Whit OS leopard i will be able to upgrade to newer OS without any optical drive so I won't need the optical drive no more after that install !

I use USB disc, USB key and airport for everything else.

There is less and less software avalaible on DVD. It's almost all on download basis !

"Are you kidding? Do you think any manufactured item should last forever? Well!, I'm going back to my auto dealer right now to demand a new car because the one I paid for 12 years ago, with 180,000 miles on it is worn out! The nerve of them selling me something that will break and wear out!"

I still fill my gas tank without having to buy a new reservoir cap.

Why can,t i download OS Lion from Apple ... because i do not have OS Snow Leopard installed.

Thank you anyway,

Hi,

I have read those already,

In the first link you can see that it is not relevant ; I can update my MacBookAir from the DVD but i cannot do an image of the DVD.

"Note: These types of discs or activities are not supported by DVD or CD sharing:

• DVD movies.
• Audio CDs.
• Copy protected discs such as game discs.
• Install discs for an operating system such as Microsoft Windows (for use with Boot Camp), or Mac OS X.
• Burn a CD or DVD

To use the above mentioned discs with a computer without an optical drive, use the MacBook Air SuperDrive or the Apple USB SuperDrive. For assistance with remote installing Mac OS X v10.6 or earlier, refer to Reinstalling software using Remote Install Mac OS X."

On the second link i need to have a working optical drive because Snow Leopard is not installed yet on my old MacBook.

Finally, i will try your first solution :

"Book a genius bar appointment, take your DVD to the Apple store, ask them to create a disk image from it and a bootable USB disk from the DVD (you would need 2 USB sticks for this)."

Thank you,

Will be back in 2015 !

Kurt Lang wrote:

With OS leopard i will be able to upgrade to newer OS without any optical drive so I won't need the optical drive no more after that install !

And you're going to ignore the important point I made?

Plus it would be needed by whoever uses the older Mac to reinstall the OS

Whoever has that older Mac may at some point, need to reinstall the OS. Since you have no intention of replacing the broken internal drive, they will need the external drive to do that from either the original 10.5.x Leopard disks, or the 10.6.x Snow Leopard disk. You can't install the OS on any computer and presume you are done with it from then until eternity.

I still fill my gas tank without having to buy a new reservoir cap.

So you're going to ignore the incredibly obvious, and completely spelled out point I made that things wear out. Yup, great comeback.

About the incredibely obvious , why ignore the main question ?

"Do you have any suggestion other than buy an external dvd-drive ? I did not use dvd for years, external usb drives are more suitables for my needs."

Also :

There is less and less software avalaible on DVD, it is almost all on download basis. Don't you use Apple Store ?

i do not reinstall my OS every year, when it wil be done, i expect that it will run for the rest of the life of that MacBook.(2 or 3 years) .What do you do with your Mac to have to reinstall your OS, i never had to reinstall OSX Leopard nor do i had to reinstall my Win 7 pc.

I cannot download OSX Lion because i do not have Snow Leopard installed !!! USB bootables for OS Lion are avalaible. Why not for Snow Leopard ?.

The solutions have been made for new MacBook that excluded older customer. I can update my MacBookAir from a PC-drive, why can't i do the same with my old MacBook ?

Finally i will try Drew's solution.