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The drive failed in the iMac, and I want to put a new one in it. I've lost my OS disks. Can I buy an upgrade disk and reinstall it without the original DVD?
Yes. You shouldn't have any problems doing this -- besides actually replacing the drive -- it's a pain in the rear to keep the screen clean when doing a repair on one of these.
Assuming you replace the drive, you should be able to boot to the upgrade disk, go to the Utilities Menu, open up Disk Utility, and erase the new HD you put in. After this, when you go to the main install window, it should prompt you to continue with a standard, clean install of Mac OS X 10.6. (Remember, however, that without the original discs, it won't come with iLife, iWork, or any of those such things -- just the OS.)
HTH! :-)
Assuming you replace the drive, you should be able to boot to the upgrade disk, go to the Utilities Menu, open up Disk Utility, and erase the new HD you put in. After this, when you go to the main install window, it should prompt you to continue with a standard, clean install of Mac OS X 10.6. (Remember, however, that without the original discs, it won't come with iLife, iWork, or any of those such things -- just the OS.)
HTH! :-)
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One additional point - if you have a Time Machine backup of your iMac prior to the disk crash, you could potentially save money (assuming you didn't need/want to upgrade to Snow Leopard anyway) and borrow someone's OS disk of the same version you were running. Just boot from the DVD, goto the utilities menu as fg suggested, and choose the TM restore option. Your OS was backed up by TM (if you have that backup;) and you do not need to reinstall a fresh OS prior to restoring. If there's an Apple Store near you, they will help you accomplish this without re-purchasing the OS, as well.
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