>> He's also using an illegal copy of OS X >> so I don't have much sympathy for him. > ...legalities aside, I've never heard of > anyone else having any problem similar to that. Of course not, if you're using legal software. A legal copy would be a retail, full-install disk or the original set that came with the computer. However, you hear this complaint all the time from folks you get an OEM copy of OS for a model x Mac and try to install it in a model y Mac. ***OEM*** is the key here.