What is fundamental difference between OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Install Disc that come with New MacBooks to one that comes in Retail Box-Pack (either Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard OS only, or Mac Box Set)?
Reason behind asking this particular question is, I have a MacBook (Late 2009) which was running Snow Leopard. I have another Mac, 15" MacBook Pro(Mid 2010).
My White MacBook got corrupted, and not booting up at all. I need to re-install Snow Leopard on it, but I have lost OS X Install Disc that came with it.
I have Snow Leopard Install Disc that came with MacBook Pro, but I don't know if this particular disc is optimized for MacBook Pro only, or can work with any Mac desktop or notebook.
Generally MacBook Pro have 4 GBs of Memory, while White MacBook have 2 GB.
May be, install disc that came with MacBook Pro is optimized to run on 4 GB, and not on other Macs.
Best Answer
Retail discs are usually early releases (10.6.0 or 10.6.3) lacking driver support for newer hardware models.
Discs bundled with specific hardware models have full driver support and are usully more recent versions (10.6.5 or 10.6.6) but are also restricted to running on just that model or release series. They also contain install packages for any bundled applications such as iLife or iWork.
In most cases the retail disc should work and you should immediately apply the latest Combo update to add any missing drivers or feature support. If the retail disc gives you any errors you'll need the bundled disc.