Which Drive Do I Erase To Do A Reinstall?

[fred123]

Hello. I'm doing a full erase and clean install of my OSX from the boot disc however I cant remember what drive to click erase on when I'm in the Disk Utilitiy menu. Do I do a full erase on the actual physical hard drive titled '250 GB Toshiba Media' or the volume icon just below it titled 'my mac hdd'-? I've looked up a few youtube videos but some do one, others do the other. Which do I erase to do a clean install? Thanks.

 

[harryb2448]

G'day band welcome to the forums.

By boot disc assume you are referring to Mac OS X.6 Snow Leopard, the last boot disc made? If so pop in the disc, reboot and hold down 'c'. When the Installer opens, leave and go to utilities > Disk Utility > Erase and format Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Select the Toshiba drive, and why you are doing this is up to you. Macs are not like Windows PC which get Registry problems and require a clean install. In twenty five years using Macs, the only twice I have ever done a re-install is when a hard drive has failed.