Fresh installed, unformatted drive - how to format

I just bought a SSD and it will arrive in a few days, but I still can't find a clear answer about how to format an unformatted drive. The only answer I can find is to use the installaion disk, I don't have that. I am running mountain lion and can make a flash drive boot, but I can't figure out how to boot from flash. I wanted to know if anyone knew if I can boot by using CMD + R on an unformatted drive to format it? Or anybody know a command that I can use to boot from flash drive?

The easiest way is to get yourself an enclosure for the drive. Here's one example:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=319523 3&CatId=2781
1. To begin temporarily install the ssd in the enclosure - it should just slide in. You now have an external ssd drive.
2. Connect it to your computer and use Disk Utility to format it as Mac OS Extended. (DU is in Applications / Utiities.)
3. Transfer whatever you want from the internal to the external using an app like Carbon Copy Cloner.
4. Check the external is bootable by looking at System Preferences / Startup disk.
5. Take the ssd out of the enclosure and install it in the Mac.
And you can put the original drive in the enclosure, as a bonus.

Similar Messages

I did not deactivate a photoshop cs6 before there was a new hard drive installed with a Win7 Pro fresh install too. How can I activate photoshop on the new hardware if I can't deactivate it on the old hardware that is no longer available? Any help will be

I did not deactivate a photoshop cs6 before there was a new "C" hard drive installed on my computer and a Win7 Pro fresh install too. How can I activate photoshop on the new hardware if I can't deactivate it on the old hardware that is no longer available? Any help will be appreciated.

If it's the same machine (same CPU) there should not be any need to activate. The actiovation is tied to your CPU.
If you run into problems, then:
Unfortunately, only Adobe customer service can assist you with your issue. These are user forums; you are not addressing Adobe here.
Click on the link below, and after that click on "Still need Help? Contact us."
Then on the next page, click Chat
There is also a phone option. 1 (800) 833-6687
http://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?step=PHXS_downloading-installing-setting-up_licensing- activation

Mtn Lion fresh Installed. Now how do I make iTunes recognize my iPhone?

I decided to wipe my HD clean and do a fresh install of Mountain Lion on my iMac i5 27". My question relates to iTunes and syncing with my iPhone. My iPhone is no longer recognized by my computer. I would hate to have to wipe my iPhone and start syncing again with a "new computer" (it's still the same machine but with a fresh system). I still have a back up of my old system and was wondering if there is a way around this. Is there a way to manually force iTunes to recognize my iPhone? Is there a file somewhere in my old backup of the entire system that could be transfered to Mountain Lion so it would recognize my iPhone? I hope someone out there has a solution for this. Thank you!

I did a clean install for troubleshooting and I wanted it to keep it clean, so Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant were out of the question. I wanted to transfer my iTunes library and purchases and to be able to sync my iPhone as before. Called Apple and the rep said the only paths were the Assistants or wipe the phone and resync with the new library losing all app data in the process. Sensing the rep may have been a bit obtuse, I emailed Apple and got a call back from another friendly rep who promptly emailed this to me:
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
I can attest this method works, and the key part may be this one:
If you backed your iOS device up to iTunes, back up your devices on the new computer or manually transfer the backups from your old computer. The backups belong in:
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Pc & mac compatible wireless ethernet lacie mini drive how to format?

ok, I have a ethernet drive connected to my wireless modem/router. My pc laptop sees it no problem, but my macbook pro won't. I know it's because the lacie drive is NTFS formatted, but I can't for the life of me work out how to reformat it to FAT32. Any ideas? Any lacie forums out there I can ask? Ta.

I have two ethernet drives connected to my router.
There isn't a hope of even communicating with them on the Mac because there's no Mac compatible software available to do it.
I've no intention of dabbling with them because I might lose the data. Time Capsule appears to be a solution to this one.

How can find software to install lbp3010b driver, how can find software to install lbp3010b driver

dear all, how can find way to install software driver for lbp3010b, thanks.....

contact makers of stuffilt deluxe http://www.stuffit.com/about/contact.html

Disk repair failed / should I reformat my drive / how to format and restore

I have a MacBook Pro late 2011 model and upgraded to Yosemite. The performance on my MB is ok, but just out of curiousity I ran a disk verify, and was told I needed to reboot, hold down CMD / R and run disk repair. I did so and the repair failed. I was promoted to backup and reformat/restore.
Now, I do backup everything using time machine (not sure though if Parallels image is backed up). I do not however have any install disks for Mac OS.
My questions:
1. Should I even bother reformatting my HD?
2. How do I go about formatting the HD and then re-installing the OS and all of my apps, particularly given that I have no DVD
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thank you

If you have extra external HDD, make clone backup with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!, then,
1) boot from external clone backup drive.
2) reformat internal HDD.
3) restore from clone backup drive with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.

External drive, how to format and partition?

Hey everybody!
I'm about to buy an external drive for my mac. I am reasonably capable on a computer, but I've never done formatting or partitioning so I have two questions:
1) I just want to check that I do not need to buy a mac-formatted drive. A little big of googling told me I could do the formatting myself with Disk Utility, just wanted to double check that that was true.
2) Once I get my external drive, what I want to do is create two partitions within that drive, one for my Time Machine backup and one for random files and movies. I'm not sure how to do that (apparently I might need to pick different formats for each in Disk Utility?) so if anybody could help out that would be brilliant.
Thanks
(if that helps, I have a MacBook Pro with a 512GB hardrive, and I want to buy a 1TB external drive)

Hi,
Here is a link that will help you set up your external drive. http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-set-up-an-external-hard-drive-for-use-with-os- x/
You won't need different formats for Time Machine backups and storage space partitions. However, given the size of your hard drive, 500 gb for Time Machine may not be enough. You could buy a separate one for Time Machine, budget permitting.
Check the size of your startup disk, and if it is only 250 gb or less, then 500 gb for Time Machine may be OK, for a while. It will soon fill up, but the older backups will be erased.
Regards.

Dead hard drive-how to format and startup with new disk

I have a 9 month old non-retina MBP. I replaced the HD with an SSD when I bought it. It seems the SSD has stopped working and I need to replace it. Grrr. I do have a Time Capsule backup that I can use, but how do I install the OS on the replacement SSD? After I have the MBP running with the new SSD, I should be able to reinstall everything else from the Time Capsule backup. I have another MBP that I can use for assistance/transferring/formatting if this will be helpful. Will Apple store Genius help me to do this? I would not be surprised that any warranty coverage may have been voided when I installed the SSD. I could use the other MBP to format the new SSD before installing it.

Your computer has got Internet Recovery. Use it to restore your backup.
To start in Internet Recovery, hold Command, Option (Alt) and R keys while your computer is starting. Then, open Disk Utility, choose your hard disk at the top of the sidebar, go to Erase tab and erase the disk using "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as format.
Finally, close Disk Utility, plug the external disk with your backup, select the option to restore a Time Machine backup and follow its steps

External drive - how to format?

Hi there
I'm about to buy a macbook after finaly getting fed up with my windows desktop. I'm going to buy a new external hard drive so I can store all my music and videos on it (it'll also make migrating a breeze) so it wont clog up my macbook hard drive, but I want it to be accessable in windows, should I need to take the files anywhere, or if i decide to use boot camp. I think I am going to have to format it it FAT32 format so that its readable and writable to both windows and OSX, can anyone confirm this or suggest something better?
Also, I'm looking at the Western Digital My Book Premium line, with the firewire and usb2 connection. Anyone had any experiences of using these drives?
Thanks very much!

FAT32 is an older file format that was in place with Win98 before we used our computers for video and such that required these large files.
I do not know the ins and outs of it all, but if an individual file is larger than 4GB, FAT32 might read it, but not all of it, or maybe not at all. If you will be working with files of that size, then it is best to avoid FAT32.
Another option is a program like MacDrive. It allows a Windows PC to read and write to HFS volumes. That way you do not have any issues with file size and will never have an issue with your Mac reading those files.
I recommend that Oxford chipset because the others, such a Prolific, have shown to have spotty reliability when it comes to booting Macs. You might be able to see the drive, but mounting it in disk utility might be a problem too. I have yet to hear of a single problem with mounting or booting the Oxford 911 chipset in Macs. I chose it because of the reliability and recommend it to everyone without reservation. I feel the quality is worth it.
Disk utility is fine for formating, partitioning, erasing a drive - whatever you want to do.

T500 XP fresh install, wireless driver won't install, help!

Hello all,
Hi all, I need some help from the techies please!!
I have had a very nasty virus (Ramnit-G) rip through my T500 which has rendered it unusable and needing a full re-install.
Now I have a legit copy of XP SP1 which is tried and tested many times on my 6 other machines so all is good.
I downloaded the ThinkVantage system update thingy as mentioned in the 4th post on this thread and also my wireless interweb driver 6mcw24ww.exe from here.
XP install all done so first job to do is get some interweb, but alas, the driver stubbornly refuses to do anything because it would like a windows installer first . So off I toddle to microsoft site and download the win installer 3.1 and install that and the interweb driver starts to install..... only to get to the final hurdle and then fail with an error box which says nothing more than "2: 0 1:" in it with an exclamation mark icon.
Can anyone help with a way round this please?
Thanks!!

Is anyone alive on this forum??
I downloaded SP3 to a USB HDD and installed that onto the T500 and now have the internet working okay, but when I try to install the Think Vantage System Update it says that it couldn't find any supported .NET Framework. So I downloaded the latest .NET Framework 4 from microsoft site and installed that, rebooted, tried again and it still says it can't find any supported framework. Is version 4 not supported then?
Please someone reply. I can't believe NO-ONE on this forum doesn't know the answer to this !
Thanks.

How to Format HDD and Install newest OS on a Powerbook G4 Titanium (1Ghz, 512mb Ram)

I have just recently acquired an old Tibook from a friend. The thing is slow and just needs alot of internal work done. Not to mention it's running OS X 10.2 which doesn't allow me to do much.
I have never owned a Macintosh (Apple) in my life so I'm a serious layman when it comes to this albiet I am very litterate with PCs (don't hate).
I would simply like to format the HDD and install a fresh OS because the computer has multiple problems that I have been troubleshooting for hours without any luck. Let me know if and how I can just do an installation over the current OS while wiping all of the old data. I just want a fresh install.
So how do I go about doing this? And whats the newest version of OS X that I can run on this computer? I think this computer is from 2002. If you need more information just let me know!
I'm really excited to learn the other spectrum of computing!

The newest version of Mac OS X that machine can run is Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard. However, with only 512mb of RAM, that OS will run very, very slowly. Even if you install 1gb, which is probably the max for that model (can't tell for sure because I am guessing at the exact model), it will be only marginally usable. My own old G4 PowerBook has 2gb of RAM and it runs Leopard pretty well, but I wouldn't want to use Leopard with less than the 2gb with the 1.25ghz processor in my PowerBook.
I'd recommend installing 10.3 Panther instead of 10.5 Leopard. Panther will run fine with 512mb of RAM and will be very comfortable and speedy if you give it the 1gb upgrade. RAM is very inexpensive right now. Panther also requires less hard drive space, which is a good thing since the hard drive in your machine is probably pretty small. There are lots of good email clients and web browsers to use with Panther in place of Mail and Safari; check out Low End Mac for suggestions and discussions.
Neither Panther nor Leopard are sold by Apple anymore. You can find both at retailers sometimes and frequently on eBay. Leopard tends to be ridiculously expensive, but Panther can often be found for under $40.
http://www.lowendmac.com/

G555 (0873) error loading operating system with fresh install of XP

Hello,
I am in need of assistance. i had XP Pro installed and functioning on my Lenovo G555 0873, but due to a bad virus i received in email I needed to reload XP because it corrupted everything. Just use it for some games so wasn't worried about data. But now I get an error loading operating system after fresh install of XP Pro, Computer formats drive copyies files and restarts like itis supposed then Operating system is lost? Can you help me?
Xtiansdomain

hey Xtiansdomain,
i do hope that you created recovery media via One Key Recovery. If you did, use that to recover your system.
however if no recovery media was made, get in contact with the support crew via : http://bit.ly/LNVsuppNum
WW Social Media
Important Note: If you need help, post your question in the forum, and include your system type, model number and OS. Do not post your serial number.
Did someone help you today? Press the star on the left to thank them with a Kudo!
If you find a post helpful and it answers your question, please mark it as an "Accepted Solution"!
Follow @LenovoForums on Twitter!
Have you checked out the Community Knowledgebase yet?!
How to send a private message? --> Check out this article.

How to format new HD and do a fresh install on used computer

i just bought a new-to-me used mac pro with a new hard drive and i want to install yosemite on this drive. i haven't done this before so i am at a bit of a loss.
the hard drive is not formatted since it is a new hard drive and there is no data on it. i do have access to my old mac pro which does have internet access.
how do i format this hard drive if it is in a new computer with no OS on it?
also is this the correct URL for installing yosemite on this computer?
thanks in advance

i mean, is this as simple as downloading the yosemite installer to the desktop of this machine, connecting the two machines via firewire cables and double-clicking on this installer dmg?
Pretty much. However, with an unformatted drive, I'm not certain what will happen if you try to start up the new-to-you Mac Pro in Target Disk Mode.
To boot it into Target Disk Mode, hold down the T key during restart. If you have a monitor connected, you'll see a bouncing FireWire symbol on the screen.
Connect the two Macs with FireWire and the TDM Mac will show up as a Hard Drive on the other, normally-booted Mac. Run the installer and choose the drive that is on the TDM Mac. If it doesn't show up, try opening Disk Utility and see if you can see the drive--I kind of doubt this will work. If you do see it, you can Partition it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID Partition Table (Options button on the Partition Tab).
FireWire Target Disk Mode is what you'd search for.
If TDM doesn't support an unformatted drive, you will have to use Internet Recovery to format the drive, or do as previously suggested and put the drive in your other Mac Pro and format/install there.

Installing new drive for OSX-How do I format and remove existing drive

I'm going to replace the 320G drive that came in my Mac Pro with a 500G. I want to format and remove the 320G, then put OSX on the 500G. How would I go about this.

Hi,
Shut down computer, add the 500GB drive into one of the open hard drive slots, reboot, there might be a window that pops up indicating if you want to "intialize" the new drive. Click Intialize (If nothing comes up launch disk utility located in applications--> utilities--> disk utility).
In the disk utility window, locate the new drive on the left side column. Click on the drive, and in the middle portion of the window there will be 5 tabs: First Aid, Erase, Partition, RAID, Restore. Click Partition.
Under Volume Scheme, choose how many partitions you want. I your case you probably just want 1 partition, so choose 1 partition.
Name the volume under volume information, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for format.
Looking at the buttons below press "Options". Your mac is intel make sure "GUID Partition Table" is clicked.
Press Partition. Wait a couple seconds for it to partition. Once done, it will show up on the desktop. It's ready to go.
Next step to decide is if you want to fresh install the OS onto this new 500GB drive OR simply clone over your 320GB. This is up to you. If you don't want to reinstall everything just use a cloning program such as "Superduper!" or "Carbon Copy Cloner".
If you want to fresh install the OS, insert the OS disk that came with the mac pro. Restart. When restarting hold down the letter "c" on the keyboard to boot from disk. Follow the instructions, and choose "erase and install". If you are going to fresh install, BE SURE TO CHOOSE THE BLANK 500GB, NOT YOUR CURRENT 320GB. To fresh install, the choice is "Erase and Install" I think. Install and your 500GB drive should be ready to go, with a brand new OS installed.
Whether you choose to clone over your system, or fresh install, if possible always run "Disk Warrior" or "Tech Tools" maintenance disks if you have them either after the OS install or after installing all your applications.
Have fun!
noice_T

How do i install snow leopard on a internal hard drive that was formatted for windows 7 in a i mac with out taking hard drive out im stuck on apple screen with start up disk in drive

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple
      logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

Fresh installed, unformatted drive - how to format

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for