Issues Reinstalling OS X 10.4.8 on MacBook

M

MacMouse

Registered
I have a MacBook & had to get a new hard drive for it. I have the grey & white disks for reinstalling OS X 10.4.8. If I hold C down when it's booting, it shows a folder with a question mark. If I hold the option button down it shows a padlock with a password box underneath & an arrow pointing to the right. I can't seem to get any further than this in order to reinstall the software. I spoke with a Mac repair center & the gentleman I spoke with had never heard of this happening with a MacBook. I hope someone here has a solution.

Thanks

Cris
 
The blank box with the padlock indicates that you have a firmware password active on your MacBook, which prevents booting to other volumes, unless you enter your firmware password in that box, then press enter, or click the right-facing arrow.
If you originally purchased this MacBook, then I'm assuming that you set up that firmware password at some point. If you most often use the same password, then try that.


If you spoke to someone at a Mac repair shop, and you described that password (padlock) box accurately, then you need to speak to someone else who knows a little more about Macs - that's a sorry example of someone who SHOULD be displaying actual Mac knowledge.

Let us know if you don't remember what you used for that firmware password.
 
Thank you!!!

The good news...I removed one of the 2 memory cards & got it to boot :)

The bad news...Apparently the guy that worked on it set a keychain password & I have no idea what it is. So now I need to figure out if there's a way to reset the password without knowing the old password :( However, he did install OS X 10.5 when I looked to see what was running.
 
If you have reset the firmware password, then you can now boot to your OS X installer DVD. Continue on to the screen where you might choose the destination disk for the install. You'll see menus at the top of the screen. You can change or reset the account password by choosing Change (or Reset) Password from the Utilities menu.

Why do you need to reinstall the original system?
 
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