wiping hard drive

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Hi,
I have recently tried to put Windows XP on my macbook using bootcamp and somehow it all went wrong and didn't install properly. To cut a long story short, I have ended up with three partitions.

1. Untitled volume with OSX 10.5 Leopard: 56. 47 Gb Capacity
38.62 GB Available
17.85 GB Used on disk Volume

2. Partially installed Windows on: 5 GB

3. The remainder is about 57 Gb of free space, which doesn't seem to show up anywhere!

I would like to get back all the space into a single drive and need to wipe the whole thing clean, not just the different volumes. I have the two install cds for OSX Tiger and the upgrade cd that has Leopard on.

Can anybody help please?

LL
 

chscag

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You'll need to boot the machine with your Tiger install DVD. After it boots, go to Disk Utility, highlight the drive, (top entry) click on Partition. Remove the extra two partitions by selecting them one by one and press the - minus button.

After that's done, erase the entire hard drive, format it as HFS Extended Journaled, select the GUID partition scheme, and then proceed with installing Tiger. After Tiger is installed, you can use your Leopard upgrade DVD to bring it up to date.

Or if you wish, buy a copy of Snow Leopard and use it instead to do the erase and install.
 
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chas_m

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I second buying Snow Leopard. A much-needed upgrade for all Intel Mac owners, and costs practically nothing!
 
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Ok I did that but when I tried to open disk utility, it just came up with a message box saying that disk utility had quit enexpectedly. there were three options, Igonre, Relaunch, Report. None of them did anything. Back to square 1.

Don't know what else to try.

LL
 
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chas_m

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Ok I did that but when I tried to open disk utility, it just came up with a message box saying that disk utility had quit enexpectedly. there were three options, Igonre, Relaunch, Report. None of them did anything. Back to square 1.

Don't know what else to try.

LL

1. Are you *absolutely certain* that you are in fact booting from your own original system DVD or a *retail* copy of the OS and NOT from your hard drive?

2. Again, Snow Leopard. $30, available anywhere Macs are sold.
 
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@ chas m
I live in NZ so it would be a lot more expensive here. I had thought about it though.

LL
 
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chas_m

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Apple has it listed for NZ $60, which works out to about $45US. A stiff penalty, yes -- but still quite substantially cheaper than either Tiger or Leopard.

Another option would be to call Apple NZ and get a replacement set of disks for your machine. I doubt it would cost any less than Snow Leopard but it can't hurt to ask.

Third option: find an local Mac dealer and see if they would be kind enough to boot your machine from one of their disks and run Disk Utility for you.
 
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I can run Disk Utility from the existing volume but have had no luck in restoring the entire HDD to a single volume. All I get is the option to partition the existing Untitled vol which has only 38 gb left on it. The free space one doesn't show anywhere, nor does the one with windows on. I just want to reinstall the OSX onto one single drive with no partitions .

LL
 
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chas_m

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If Disk Utility is now working for you, then I'd suggest just wiping the entire hard drive, which would have the effect of erasing all partitions. Obviously, whatever stuff was on there before will be gone for good. Then reinstall OS X.
 
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Hi,
that's what I have been trying to do. Can you help me step by step?

LL
 
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Here is a screen grab (hopefully)

Nope didn't work!

LL
 
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chas_m

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Hopefully this will help:

1. Make sure you are booted from an external drive or the system DVD.

2. Open Disk Utility from the DVD or external drive NOT your hard drive.

3. Select the drive or volume you wish to erase.

4. Select the "Erase" tab

5. You (unlike me in the screen shot below) will be presented with some options.

Erasing.jpg
 
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Hi chas m,
Thanks for getting back to me.

Unfortunately, I don't have an external drive. It is definitely the DVD that i booted from but it gives that notice I previously mentioned about Disk Utility quitting unexpectedly.

In Disk Utility in Applications (the one on the HDD) I can open fine and get the same as your screen shot. Should I try it from there, and will it effectively restore ALL the space on all the three volumes?

If all else fails, I will take the Macbook to a Mac tech here.

Cheers for all your help, and I'll let you know what happens.

LL ;D;D;D
 
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chas_m

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The Disk Utility on your hard drive cannot give you the option to erase the hard drive, for obvious reasons.

But yes, erasing the hard drive would reformat the drive into a single partition.
 
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Ah, ok, I tried again with the install DVD and read the "Read me" help and somehow I managed to get into the Disk Utility on the DVD. What I did was let the DVD start installing and then found Utilities when it came to Select destination. At last I could then select the the option of restoring the HDD to factory settings! So far so good!
Will keep you posted.
LL
 
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YES! Success! All back to normal now. :):):)

100 thank yous to you chas m :*

Cheers LL
 
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Or you could just

remove the boot camp partition and all it's contents. Page 14 of the Boot Camp manual.
 
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@wolfpuppies3,
Would that mean that I'd never be able to use Bootcamp again? Anyway It's all fixed now so will not mess with it again until I understand more about the bootcamp partition.

Cheers LL
 
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Hi,
Here is what I now have on my Macbook when I open BootCamp Assistant. How do I restore the 5 GBs that Windows seems to have taken, to my HDD?
I can't seem to find anyway of doing it and wondered if anyone has any clues please? Hope this screen grab works.

bc capture

LL
 

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