Old MacbookPro & installing OS w/ USB drive

[Dudester4]

I have a 4-5 year old macbook pro running OS 10.4.11. The disk drive is dead. I need it to run Snow Leopard though for some Adobe software. I have a USB to SATA/IDE adapter and I'm going to get an internal sata or ide disk drive.

Will the Mac be able to install Snow leopard through a USB disk drive? I've used the adapter for a sata hardrive, but nothing else....

To clarify, the plan is to have the mac connected to a USB adapter, and the adapter connected to a disk drive.
Will this work?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

edit edit: man...you're confusing me

So you've got an optical drive. You're connecting it to the mac with a SATA to USB adapter. And trying to install an OS on one of the hard drives from the Optical drive connected via USB?
Yep, that should work.
Just put the disc in the drive and hold down 'C' OR (if that doesn't work) try 'Option'

 

[Dudester4]

Thanks. It worked fine. For the record, I ran the installation from within Tiger. When doing so the computer reboots to the DVD install Window. If you want to keep your files, you just continue installing. If you want a clean wipe of your harddrive, then when your in DVD install go to utilities>disk utility> and I believe you do erase the drive(I didn't actually do that last part).