Trying to reinstall Lion or Snow Leopard

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I have a late 2010 iMac 21.5. I'm about to sell it so I wanted to reinstall Snow Leopard and restore the drive to it's original out of the box state. I've made a mess of things and now I cannot re-install Snow Leopard or even Lion. I'm left with 2 .dmg images that I cannot eject or close. :Grimmace: I've tried erasing the drive and also setting up a new partition. No matter what the files have me locked up and the Mac just keeps repeating the pattern. How can I resolve this? Thanks
 

Raz0rEdge

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Why do you have .DMG of Snow Leopard? Lion I can understand..but you should have the original disc that came with your iMac that you can use to restore to it's original OS..
 
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Simple question ... do you have the original installation DVD's that came with the machine ?
If not, I suggest you go an buy a retail copy op Snow Leopard and install from there.

Cheers ... McBie
 
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Simple question ... do you have the original installation DVD's that came with the machine ?
If not, I suggest you go an buy a retail copy op Snow Leopard and install from there.

Cheers ... McBie

I do have the original DVDs but still can't get it to work. At least if it's trying to it seems to hang up.
 
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Okay boot from the SL DVD and run Repair Disk from there and see what is reported. If all is well and good, go to Utilities > Disk Utility and erase the disk, formatting Mac OS Extended (Journalled), into Partition, and under Option ensure the partition map is set to GUID. Then sell the computer with a clean hard drive and the discs and let the new owner do a clean install.
 
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I cannot boot from the SL DVD, the installation hangs at the screen that displays the Apple logo.

Here's what my start up screen looks like once I get to disk utility;
500.11 gv wdc
mac os x install dvd
Super Drive
mac os x install DVD

disk2
Mac OS x install ESD
disk 3
mac os x base system
( what a mess!!)

I cannot unmount nor can I erase when I'm able to get to the disk utility function

Error rreads disk erase failed cannot unmount disk
 
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DUH, DUH and DUH!!! After trying every suggestion, I thought am I using the right DVD? NO I wasn't, I hunted down the correct DVD and SL has been restored, the iMac now ready for sale. Thanks for your input!

Go Pats!!
 
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Don't worry Steve that is a common problem with more than one lot of discs on hand. Was to be the next question did the disc come with this machine?
 

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