I deleted my Macintosh HD!

Probably the most moronic thing i have ever done. I wanted to do a complete reinstall and somehow along the way deleted the Macintosh HD. I did this trying to reinstall Leopard with install disc 1 in the drive. Now when i turn on my Mac it loads up the disc straight away asking for my language settings, then it says the software could not be installed and goes to the Mac OS X Installer page with only a handful of options like disk utility.

I made up a backup via Time Machine on an external HD but when i click 'Restore by Time Machine' nothing happens.

Is there a way i can rectify this terrible error.? Any help would be greatly appreciated.I also apologise if this is the wrong area i have posted in.

Im generally not fantastic with computers (go figure) so any explanation in the simplest terms would be awesome.

When your mac starts up, select your language, and then open Disk Utitilty. You should see the drive listed under there. Make sure it is mounted. If it's mounted, perhaps try and format it, then try the install again.

Cheers. I'll try that. I asked on another forum and got a few ways to fix it but all failed.I think im just going to have to visit the Apple Store in London.

Thanks for the reply.

CarlitoJay said:

Cheers. I'll try that. I asked on another forum and got a few ways to fix it but all failed.I think im just going to have to visit the Apple Store in London. Thanks for the reply.

Click to expand...

Bring your credit card when you go there. You can fix it yourself.

Bring up Disk Utility as has been suggested, highlight the drive, format it as HFS + with one partition, name it "Macintosh HD". Then instead of proceeding with the installation of OS X and software, select restore from Time Machine.

Make sure your external HDD is attached and mounted. Select which backup you want and proceed. That should do it if everything goes well. If not, the folks at the Apple store will take care of it. £££

Regards.

chscag said:

Bring your credit card when you go there. You can fix it yourself.

Bring up Disk Utility as has been suggested, highlight the drive, format it as HFS + with one partition, name it "Macintosh HD". Then instead of proceeding with the installation of OS X and software, select restore from Time Machine.

Make sure your external HDD is attached and mounted. Select which backup you want and proceed. That should do it if everything goes well. If not, the folks at the Apple store will take care of it. £££

Regards.

Click to expand...

Sorry. What do you mean by HFS +?

CarlitoJay said:

Sorry. What do you mean by HFS +?

Click to expand...

HFS+ is the filesystem that OS X uses for hard drives much like Windows uses NTFS. This is a technical thing and irrelevant to your daily usage of your Mac.

Mac OSX Extended Journalized is what you want. HFS+ is not in the menu in Disk Utility.

Thanks for all the help guys but again no luck.

Looks as if i'll be going to the Apple store tomorrow. Anyone know how much it may cost to fix?

You need to book an appointment in advance on the web for the genius bar and you will surely not get one the following day, but they will most likely help you out free of charge.

Hey guys.

Managed to get things sorted after i found my discs. Lost all my stuff though as my backups didn't work.

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the help.