Well, ran into a slight snag. My copy of Leopard arrived on Friday and I tried installing it today. The caveat: Marika touched the underside of the Leopard DVD before I got a chance to slide it into my Macbook. It seemed to load up fine and I went through the reboot to start up under the DVD. I started the install and went off for a while. Came back to the installation screen and a rotating status bar but no progress noted (after about 20-30 minutes). More ominous, I didn't hear the DVD running/accessing at all. Pulled up the installation log to see where things were at - showed multiple read errors and inability to open files. Quit out of the installation program and ejected the DVD to take a look. A few fingerprint smudges from Marika but otherwise looked OK. Luckily, my Macbook booted back into Tiger without an issue. Cleaned the DVD and slid it back into the computer. OK, now, it won't read the disc. Tries reading it and spits it back out. Tried cleaning the DVD again, this time with a microfiber cloth. Carefully examine for any further fingerprints/smudges/dust. None seen - tried putting it back in - still doesn't work. Tried putting another software DVD in my Macbook - reads normally. Tried putting the Leopard DVD in Amanda's Powerbook - seems to load normally.

Totally confused at this point, I cleaned it for the umpteenth time again and tried putting it in again - wow, it loads! Start the installation process and my Macbook reboots to load from the DVD - ooops, no go again - drive spins and spits out the DVD.

I'm suspecting that I got a bad DVD that's incompatible with my Superdrive - the disc surface looks good (much better than some of my older DVD/CDs that I've used/abused and they all work fine). Talked to the Apple Store locally to see if they'll swap it out for me (I bought it online from Amazon) ... they say, no, you'll have to deal with them. So, contacted Amazon, they're sending me a replacement, I've printed out a return label and will be dropping it off at an UPS drop off location sometime this coming week. (sigh) Hopefully, the replacement disc will work better than this.

Masaki