MacBook Pro :: Formatting My Hard Drive And Installing Leopard?
Dec 26, 2007
I think I'm going to format my hard drive to delete everything from it and start fresh with leopard. I already have leopard installed, but I think I should just format my hard drive (after backing up what I truly need like my music and other files) and then just install leopard.
Question, I have read that I go to disk utility to do this (format and install leopard), is this correct? If so, what else do I need to know before I do this?
I am having problems with my I-Mac. It is the 2.8GHZ 24" model and when I try to start it up I get a white screen with a blinking grey file folder with a "?" mark in it??
I had this problem before. Erased the hard drive and then reinstalled everything. I made it through it but I think I may have done it wrong. Anyways the computer worked good till the other day. I upgraded to Snow Leopard and now it is doing it again.
Do I need to start with the install disk 1 that came with the computer and install disk 2, then install snow leopard? Or can is there a faster route of doing this?
My hard drive died last week on my MacBook and I failed to back up anything forever the last couple of months. Anyway, I took it to the genius bar and they confirmed its death, and showed me how to replace it. I decided to go ahead and do so on my own, and also upgraded the memory while I was in there. I also decided to upgrade to lion since my DVD drive was giving me trouble and it'd be easier to use the USB - and yes the computer meets the requirements for Lion.The problem is that when I try to boot up to format the HD, I only get a black screen. No disk utility when holding option, nothing. What am I doing wrong?
I have an intel iMac (non-aluminum) without an operating system. But there are lots of important files on the iMac's hard drive. Can I install OS X Tiger on it without erasing any files, and still have them be accessible on the computer? If so, how?
I have an external hard drive which I first used with my pc. It is formatted for NTFS. Now with my new MBP, I want to back up data, and I am having no luck. The external hard drive is a Verbatim brand, 500GB. On their website FAT32 download dosnt work! I have tried disk utility with no luck. What am I missing?
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
my white macbooks hard drive broke along with my cd drive. I purchased a new hard drive and put it in but now I have no way to install Leopard since my cd drive is broke.I do understand the best way would be to buy an external CD drive and use that but I would rather not waste all that money on one use.I do have a firewire cable and my friend has a white macbook. I've heard that you can boot using another computer and use there cd drive via firewire by holding "T" or whatever.
I have a Macbook pro 17" 2008 model, and I just bought a new 160gb Intel X-25m solid state hard drive. I installed it into the mac with no problem, but when I boot up with the OS boot disc 1, the drive doesn't show up in the "destination" screen. No drives are there. When I open Disk Utility the drive is there, and shown as read/write, but when I boot with option held down the drive isn't there either. I can't even do any repairs on the drive in the disk utility.
i was wondering if it is possible to install snow leopard without a superdrive or the remote disc utility, but from an external hard disk drive which the snow leopard files have been put on.i have already googled to the end of the world. no success so far.
I'm getting a new hard drive in my iBook G4 tomorrow, as well as more memory, and was wondering if there is anything special I will need to do to install Leopard on this HD that has nothing on it.
I have the disk image for Leopard on my external hard drive. I put it on there from my Powerbook. I tried to reinstall Leopard onto a Macbook but it wouldn't let me because I had to do a GUID partition on the external hard drive. I did that, put the DMG back onto the external drive and went to install it. I went to Startup Disk under System Prefences but my hard drive isn't showing up.
I'm selling my old white Macbook so I can purchase the new Unibody one. I wasn't sure how exactly to "wipe" my old hard drive on Mac. Do I have to install the OS all over again? Did my Macbook come with the disc so I could do this? If not, is there a way to wipe everything without formatting the hard drive?
I'm selling my Macbook Pro and the buyer said when formatting my harddrive, I don't need to reinstall the OS (10.6.8) because he is going to install 10.7 on it. This is good news for me because I don't have the OS installation disk anymore. I read somewhere that it could be possible to format my hard drive using another Mac (my roommate has a Macbook so that works) but I can't seem to find exact instructions.
I asked about running Snow Leopard on my mac after a hard drive fail. I'm having issues with formatting a new hard drive in my mac. I have a 2007 black macbook and I'm trying to run a 160gb SATA seagate hard drive. After replacing this hard drive, I booted my mac up from cd, ran through setup fine until I got to the 'select a drive to install to' - the point where my hard drive should be visible. Nothing there at all. Nothing to click on in the box. My question is, is there a process I need to undertake to format the hard drive or is this an indicator of a much bigger problem?
I just bout this Western Digital External Hard drive, Passport SE. Anyways, I formatted it to MS-DOS (FAT) so I can use on mac and/or windows. One of the other main reasons I bought it was so I could use it to watch videos on my Xbox 360.
Now I've seen tutorials online with windows how to re-format it to FAT32 so it works properly on xbox 360 but cannot figure it out on mac? On some of the tutorials they use certain programs to do it, is there something like that for mac I can download? Is fat32 and fat the same? I know there has to be a way for me to be able to format it to FAT32 using mac.
When installing Snow Leopard, will it erase my hard drive and force me to start all over or will it just update the software and keep everything the way it is on my Mac now?
I am installing a bigger hard drive for my Macbook pro, when I bought leopard I only paid for it to licensed on 1 comp. How can I keep leopard if I install the new hard drive?
Ive recently purchased a new external hard drive. I plan to use it on both Apple and Windows OS.
I was told that if I do, then i could corrupt the files/data that I will be accessing on both computers.
Is there a "universal" format for an external drive which would prevent/avoid this kind of thing happening ? How should i format it or which format should i use so that i can use the drive both OS ?
Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7)
I'm about at my wits end. I would say I have a harddisk failure, but it passes every diagnostic I can throw at the thing. My problem is that I erased the main drive in my mac (been booting from an external hd) and I'm trying to install Leopard on this drive. The Leopard install starts, I'm able to choose the disk, and tell it to erase and install (or just install after erasing the disk externally). The installer starts, gets about 30-40 minutes in and then just plain stops because some package or other (seems to be different every time) is corrupt. My only option is to reboot and try again. I've done it three times now and am starting to feel rather stupid. Is there a known issue here that anyone can direct me at? I didn't see anything snarfing around the forums, but that doesn't mean I could've just plain missed it. I've just finished running tech tool pro 4 hardware tests (drive controller, etc.), surface scan, disk utilities erase and verify hoping it would tell me if there is a disk problem brewing. So far all the tests show green. I decided to try and hit the thing with something that writes to every imaginable space on the disk, so I ran erase free space from disk utilities. I plan on trying again after that finishes.
I have a white shell Fall 2007 (Santa Rosa) Macbook with a 120gb 7200 RPM hard drive. I bought a new 320gb hard drive and snow leopard today and want to ensure that I won't lose anything if I back my hard drive up as a "regular leopard" machine and then try and recall the files after installing the new drive as a "snow leopard" running system.
got a real basic question to ask and you're gonna think im an idiot for asking...I just bought a 320gb western digital elements hard drive and want to reformat it so that its compatible for both mac and pc's. i intend to format it as NTFS-3G as it would allow me to use it on the 2 platforms without having the 4GB file size restriction that fat32 has, anyway.....
when I go to reformat my external hard drive in disk utility, I see my external hard drive to the left, and there's a "sub" hard drive as a child of the external hd listed uppermost. just wandering which one of the two do i select before going to Erase>Windows NT filesystem (NTFS-3G)>erase? Do I select the uppermost drive and erase that or the lower one? or both
I just got my new Seagate 640gb external hard drive and am in the process of formatting it on my MBP. However, I am not sure which format to do? My main use for the hard drive is for transferring media files back and forth between my MBP and PC using just one partition on the drive. I already know I'm not supposed to pick 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' because I believe that is to use it as a boot drive. So should I pick 'Mac OS Extended' or maybe 'Free Space'?
I have just got an old 2004 G5 and thrown a brand new hard drive in it. When i tried to install leopard (which I'm told would be the best operating system to use) it comes up with a blank blue screen!
Notes. Failed HDD ASD Test. A new hard drive was installed in September of 2011 after the previous hard drive failed. Having worked well until now the system seems to give the same problems as it had previously. I am wondering if this is a compatibility issue as others have pointed out.
I have been told by the technician my only option is to replace the entire hard drive again for the second time with a new one. However to my understanding a ASD test is very specific and this my not be necessary? Further I am attempting a final backup just in case. I don't have to take it in where I could just back it up myself without the system shutting down.
I have a 500GB hard drive in my laptop, I partitioned it and I put 80GB for Windwos and then the rest of it for MAC, I don't know how but I somehow got rid of the Windows. I ejected the BOOTCAMP on the Desktop of the Mac OS X and then I tried to delete the partition but it didn't work. Now I tried to go to BootCamp Assistant but It doesn't show that I have partitioned hard drive. It shows me that I have only 420GB and it shows only my Macintosh HD. The 80GB are lost somewhere. Tell me how can I format the whole hard drive and get the 500GB again? And i want to do it while the hard drive is in the laptop and is working? Is there any way of doing that(it is fine if i have to install the OS again) Or what do i have to get done so that I can fix it?
I'm switching back to PCs for now, what is the best way of getting all my data over? The external HD is Mac OS X "Journaled", what would I need to format it to for Vista to read it?
I have a new iMac 27, which I'm running primarily as a Windows machine. Using Bootcamp, I sectioned off 150GB of the 256GB SSD for Windows and installed W7 on it (the rest I leave for OS X, in case Windows fails, or upgrades become available). I've installed programs on the Windows drive, transferred my emails, etc. Now I still have to do something with the 1T hard drive, which I've decided not to partition, and to use exclusively in Windows mode. Two questions:
1. Please talk me through the process of formatting the 1T drive, as if I were a child! 2. I will use this drive mostly for large data files, but perhaps also for less important programs. Installations seem to happen more or less automatically when you insert a disc - how would I direct a program in the normal course of an automatic installation towards this second larger hard drive, AND is there any way (simply) to have programs running on the SSD with associated data files sitting on the other drive (e.g. with iTunes)?
I installed a new hard drive into my wife's older iBook G4 since the HD that came with the machine was only 30GB and was max'ed out shortly after we added some applications and photos. (Never should have bought such a small hard drive in the 1st place!) The new hard drive is an 80GB hard drive I bought online. I turned on the machine and got the question mark (?) blinking with something else on the 1st screen that came up. I proceeded to insert the original iBook OSX install cds. First I cleared the hard drive under disk utility and then the computer recognized the new drive. Then installation began. Got through the first disk no problem. Then it restarted and asked for disk two, which I inserted.
Then, if it decided to start installing from disk 2 (it kept going back and forth before it actually started disk two installation), it would get about 75% through the disk two installation and I keep getting a message saying 'There were errors installing the software'. I have tried to eject and re-insert the cd and I get the same message. I started from scratch by re-booting, wiping the hard drive clean again and started with disk one, only to get to disk two and encounter the same problem. I don't want to take this computer in and pay a service company to get me straight. This is an experiment to see if I could upgrade the hard drive and memory to make a slower/older machine perform better. We really only use it for organizing photos, surfing the net, office applications, etc.
