How can I make a bootable MAC OS X on a 16G USB stick in XP

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madder

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I have a 2007 MACbook pro. It has a software error and won't boot past the Apple logo on startup. Almost all of the shortcut keys are not working. Only 2 of them do work. Apple Hardware test, which passed, and Verbose mode, which froze before it booted also. No other short cup keys are working, and resetting PRAM and NVRAM didn't solve the problem. My optical DVD drive doesn't work, and they are well known to fail. With that in mind, previously I ripped an Image of OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 to an external hard drive as a .DMG file. I just wanted to have an option for future reference if ever I had problems. However, the hard drive I ripped it to is used on my PC which runs windows XP32 bit. I no longer have my MAC OS DVD. All I have is the .dmg file on my external hard drive which isn't bootable to my MAC. I have a 16GB pen usb drive, which is currently formatted to FAT32. However the .DMG OS X file is over 6GB in size and so I cannot get that to work as it's too large. I need to be able to format this USB stick so that I can copy the .DMG file to it, and then try to boot it on startup in the MACbook pro.
I have a PC computer available to me, running 32 bit Windows XP. What should I do? I have heard that any MACbooks that were pre OS X 10.6.5 will not work with exFAT formatting? Is it worth trying that anyway?
 
OK, I found an easy way to get it running the software again. I plugged a USB keyboard into it, and managed to rest the NVRAM that way, so it loads up the software no without any problems. However, it is running OS X Version 10.5.5. I have the .DMG file of Snow Leopard 10.6. How would I go about formatting the MAC and installing Snow Leopard 10.6? Or better again, how would I go about restoring the factpry settings, removing all the added software I currently have? Keeping in mind that I don't have the DVD of OS X 10.5, and I don't have a functioning optical DVD drive either!
 
Slight drift, but relevant. FAT32 does not support files over 4GB. However, a Windows XP/Vista/& machine can be used to convert that FAT32 disk to NTFS. Open a Command Prompt with full Administrator rights. Insert the USB disk into the machine, and make a note of its drive letter (we'll call it H: for now). At the command prompt type in CONVERT H: /FS:NTFS /V /X and hit the <enter> key. Note that there is a space before each of the forward slashes.

To explain a bit. CONVERT is the name of the program which is run. H: is the drive letter. /FS:NTFS - file system (is) NTFS /V Verbose mode, -will display each step of the conversion on screen. /X forces a dismount of the drive, preventing the prompt to dismount the drive.

Personally, I would not format a drive of less than 8GB with NTFS - is it really necessary?

Hope this helps.
 
I actually found an Operating system that is smaller than the 4GB. It's OS X Lion 10.7. It's under the 4GB and so it should work ok with FAT32. Thanks for all the help and info
 
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