OS X :: Using Terminal To Erase Hard Disk Because Can't Boot From Dvd To Reinstall Tiger
Aug 4, 2007
i know that diskutil has alot of commands and im not sure how to use them, i would specifically want to know how to use eraseDisk properly. Or is there any other way to clean install tiger without using darwin? I know eraseDisk gives me a format to use but i never get it right for some reason. diskutil eraseDisk "Journaled HFS+" MacintoshHD bootable /dev/disk0 -- this works i got it right now but it gives me this error: could not unmount disk for zeroing
I need to erase a disk I bought with NO formatting. I shouldn't have initialized it when I connected it, and now I need to erase it but do NOT want to format it.
I've been trying to use diskutil eraseDisk %noformat% /dev/disk1
Like the diskutil eraseDisk instructions tell me to, but it won't take.
I was excited to get my hands on our family's 'family' copy of Snow Leopard to install on my MacBook running Tiger 10.4.11... I'd checked out tutorials on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loFUyDjCbK8) on how to clean install Snow leopard onto a blank hard disk, and was all set to bring my OS up to date...
I inserted the Snow Leopard DVD and restarted and immediately held down the 'c' key and then... 3 minutes or so of the loading icon ticking later and the DVD was rejected and I only had one button to click on, 'Macintosh HD' to start up from.
After re-trying several times I thought it was because I was trying to do it with Snow Leopard on my MacBook running Tiger so I tried restarting this time with disk 1 of the Tiger DVD. This was rejected too!
So currently I am not able to wipe my hard disk as far as I know because I can't get to this screen to start the process (unless it's possible to do from within Tiger and if it is then I'm just worried that if I wipe it and I can't restart from the DVDs then I'll be in even bigger trouble).
Has anyone encountered problems like these and does anyone know of a solution? I've never had any problems with my DVD drive in the past which leads me to suspect it's not because of that.
I am on a mac pro and I can navigate my OS drive fine in terminal but I have 3 other hard drives how to I go from my OS hard drive to one of my other hard drives?
I have a MacBook Pro which was originally supplied with OS X10.4.9. I have upgraded using disks purchased from the Apple store to 10.5 and subsequently 10.6. More recently I upgraded to 10.7 using the download from the online App Store. I would like to perform an Erase and Install to get rid of the 'dross' on my hard disk and may do this as part of the 10.8 upgrade although have yet decide whether to wait for this or not.Â
when doing the erase and install, do I have to start from scratch by loading the original 10.4.9 OS X version or can I start at 10.7. If the latter how would I do this given that I don't have a disk as it was downloaded from the App Store?
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Cant erase hard drive because cant "unmounted disk"...My hard drive crashed about a month ago, and i used a program called data rescue to clone hard drive. when i put it in mac it will not load. now all i want to do is erase the drive and install Yosemite as new mac. but cant install or erase the hard drive.
I have an external hard drive that was used on a PC. I want to use it on a Mac. I went into disk utility and did an erase. (Extended Journaled and in security options changed it to zero out data). I can now use it on the Mac how ever it is telling me that there is 54.1 MB of used space. I want to have access to this. How do I do it?
I have a hard drive with about 250 gb of film and music on fbut it's formatted as HFS+ which windows cant read! I need to partition the drive to make windows be able to read at least a portion of it. But If I run disk utility and create a partition will it erase the info I already have on there? I don't have this data else where so I hope it wont!
I'm wanting to sell my old Mac mini, but I need to know how to erase any and all private information that I don't want any possible buyers to have access to. How do I go about this?
My older MBP is running very slow, and I have tried all the usual ways of making it run quicker - repair permissions, repair disk from Lion recovery partition, remove extraneous files, checking Activity Monitor, etc. etc. Someone suggested reformatting the HD and then restoring from a backup. I have the HD cloned to an external HD with Super Duper, but if I reformat the internal HD and restore from the clone, won't the problems that caused the issue in the first place just be cloned into SD and then restored to the reformatted internal drive, thus defeating the excercise?
1. To grab all the files I need/don't want to lose (photos, music, documents, etc.)2. Then completely erase the 500GB HD so I can then install it into the new Macbook Pro and install Leopard.(I'll then externally connect the 160GB HD that came w/ my Macbook Pro and add the files I've already copied into that 160GB HD into the 500GB Leopard installed HD in the new Macbook Pro)So, currently my 500GB HD is connected to my Macbook pro and I want to completely erase everything so I'll then have a completely clean hard drive, to then install into the Macbook Pro, add the installation discs and install Leopard into the 500GB HD.
I'm selling my old Powerbook G4. Before I let it go, I want to wipe the hard drive and reinstall OS 10.4. I also would like to run disk first aid because I suspect there may be some corruption. The problem: I still have the original system install DVDs that came with the laptop, but the DVD drive no longer works. It just spins the disks for a bit then spits them back out. I do have an external USB hard drive with plenty of free space. Is there a way I can copy the install DVDs (there's a Disc 1 and Disc 2) to the external hard drive, then boot from that drive and treat it like I'm installing from the DVDs? I also have my new MacBook Pro with a working DVD drive. Can I make my Powerbook boot from a CD in the MacBook's drive? If not, how else can I wipe my system and reinstall the OS without a working DVD drive?
I am considering purchasing diskwarrior but want to make sure it can help my situation before I purchase it. My imac will not boot from the internal hard drive (Intel processor) When I use disk utility to try and repair the disk, I get error messages and it won't repair. I can see the HD but cannot repair it. When I connect using target mode with my mac book pro, the hard drive does not appear on my host (macbook pro) computer. I have reloaded OS X (Leopard) onto a firewire external drive and can boot my imac that way but I can not find my original internal Macintosh HD. Will disk warrior be able to help with this scenario. I would really like to access that internal Macintosh HD and retrieve my files.
I have a white macbook which I purchased in 2007 ( it is the version that only goes to 2MB of Ram total). In anycase I have a Hard Drive that i want switch into it. The question I have is there any benefit to just reinstalling a fresh copy of Leopard vs using a cloning software (SuperDuper or Carbon Copy)? Here is why I ask:
I cant remember ever defragging the current drive ( if that possibility even exists in Leopard. I dont remember running any system tool like utility. I have basically kept computer on ( or on sleep) for the time Ive used it. It is the best computer i have ever had. It is VERY low maintainance.
So with that said....does cloning copy over every characteristic ( an fragmented drive...slowness {of which none really exists}....or the time to launch the OS when it is rebooted)?
With all of this said, I dont use this computer for much storage. I have a couple of MP3s on there which can be ported off of there with a USB flash drive....and a couple of documents. Everything else is pretty much expendable.
I dont know...something tells me that its just better to freshly install the OS.
After backing up my data and then swiping my hard drive using Disk Utility, my OS seems to have been uninstalled as well. Is there a way to recover the deleted information and go back to the last working configuration? I'm on a MBP IC2D 2.16 w/ Lion.
I've just transferred my data to a new computer and now need to erase the hard drive on my old one.. I've tried Disk Utility, increased the security, and tried 'erase' but I keep getting an error message "couldn't unmount disk". I've gone into Partitions and tried deleting the HD there as well but I get the same message. I just want to get the computer securely wiped and would like to keep Lion as the operating system.Â
I have a 2007 Blackbook with Snow Leopard installed. I tried to install Bootcamp but it said that I had to do an erase + reinstall first. I booted my mac up from the OS X disc, got past the language menu, then got a pop up stating "MAC OS X Cannot Be Installed." I can't click on Disk Utility or anything else on the menu bar. How else can I erase my HD?
Is an "Erase and install" really that complicated. I don't have enough free space on my HD to do an "archive and install". I want to keep all my old Apps but dont have any of the installation CD's as all the apps were all on the computer when its was given to me.
I cannot understand why I am unable to reinstall my Mac OS X installation disk 1 after performing a 7 pass erase. I kept the installation disk in the computer because iMac would not allow me to eject it. Plus I needed the installation disk in my computer to perform the erase in Disk Utility. did I erase the entire installation disk?
I have this iMac, and now I mostly use my macbook pro. So what I want to do to this one is delete everything (of course I will back up what I need) and then reinstall Lion, so first it can be faster. And second imac run bootcamp on it so I can play some PC Games.
Today I took my MacBook to the apple store for an erase and reinstall due to about 20gb of space was missing on my HD. My latest backup was done the day before I went back to Apple to reinstall Lion. After I restored my data from the backup, the address book app and the app store app are both missing. My address book data is on iCloud so I'm not that concerned about the data but I would like to get the app back on my MacBook.Â
