Use my wife's OS X Install Disc to Install Lion on My Macbook?

[rogerthat]

My wife just bought a new macbook and got Lion OS X, but I still have Tiger. Is there a way for me to use her install disc to get the latest OS X on my older macbook? When I try, I get an error message: "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer."

[Jack]

I'm pretty sure that this is against the software license. You should buy a retail version of OS X Lion for your other Macbook, since the version you got with your wife's computer is only intended for that computer. The disc is paired with that machine and will only be installed on that machine.

That being said, if you wanted to create a backup of a clean installation (say in case your wife's hard drive dies) you could plug a USB drive into your wife's computer and then boot up her macbook with the install disc inserted while holding C. Then, install OS X to the attached USB drive. If it's a new hard drive, you may need to run DISK UTILITY and erase it and format it as a Mac OS extended Journaled disk.

Once installed, you can boot this hard drive on any mac. This is pretty handy for recovery purposes, say, if your wife's macbook gets beaned in the screen, you can pull out the hard drive and slide it into your old macbook internally or attach it via usb and then boot it. To boot from a drive other than the main one, hold OPTION while your macbook boots.

But again, you shouldn't do this just to avoid paying for the operating system. No one's going to catch you, it's just unethical, I think.