How do I format the hard drive on my Imac without losing the applications etc?

I am fairly new to mac computers. and was wondering if there is anyone out there who could help. I have an Imac running Snow Leopard which is becoming very slow in starting up. I want to format the hard drive but still want to retain the applications etc already on the Imac. Can I just time machine the computer then insert thte OS disk which will format the hard drive? Will this give me a better start up time?
Many thanks in advance.

If you format the hard drive, you'll lose all your data. You can make a Time Machine backup, format the disk and restore from the backup only what you need

Similar Messages

  • How do i format my hard drive on my iMac then reinstall snow leopard

    I updated Snow Leopard with Maverick, since then my machine is taking forever to open apps and runs very slow.
    I would like to do a clean install but forgotten how, It's an age thing.

    I had a problem like this when I tried OS X 10.7 and then went back to 10.6.8
    It makes a partition on the hard drive that the computer goes to first then the bootup (os partition).
    you have to boot from the original disc open disk utility
    re-partition the harddrive as one drive, not multiple partitions
    and then restart of disc 1, select time machine and let it install os and data from external drive
    or just install from disc 1/2 like a brand new mac and then use time machine to get the data over
    (or a clone of the disc if you used some cloning program)
    you just have to make sure the harddrive has that 'emergency' partition that get's put on there deleted or you will be going in circles not knowing what keeps it from installing a good, working os, like 10.6.8
    Apple kinda went to far off in going to 10.7 then on up for some of us who like a stable platform that JUST WORKS.

  • MacBook Pro2012 : How can you get hard drive upgraded in Netherlands without losing warranty?

    My MacBook Pro (2012) hard drive is almost full, Apple refuses to provide hard drive upgrade service, how can you get hard drive upgraded in Netherlands without losing warranty?

    Dear Ralph, and All
    My MBP is indeed non-retina.
    I also have Apple care support for 3 years
    I was in touch with Apple suport since last week. Response I got on Phone was pretty astounding (waiting email confirmation). They say following
    - Apple support does not provide such service of upgrading hard drive
    - Doing it yourself means you will lose warranty (due to nature of operation one would need to perform on the computer)
    - None of authorised delars will provide such a service
    So as such there apparantly is no way to get your hard drive upgraded without losing warranty.
    Leaves me a bit perplexed
    I do understand MBP retina (or iPAD / iPhones) are manufactured in way that makes it technically impossible to upgrade certain parts. But why non-retina MBP?
    What do you all think? is this reasonable? is this what a MBP customer would expect?
    Really appreaciate the quick responses i have recieved from you and others on this forum.
    Many thanks
    Tirath Shah

  • How can i format my hard drive

    how do i format the hard drive

    Format hard drive on what?   I note from your profile you have a Dell Dimension 4600 Windows XP without any Apple hardware listed!  It is just possible that you are asking your question on the wrong site.

  • HT1338 How can I format my hard drive without installation disk?

    Guys I am using Mac with OS X 10.6.5. How can I format hard drive without the installation disk?
    I don't have a installation disk can I buy one? where?

    Call Apple Sales at 1-800-692-7753 to order 10.6.
    Posts concerning 10.6 should be made in 10.6 usage forum.
    You posted in the 10.3 and down forum which is very old OSX software.
    DALE

  • How to view windows Xp formatted hard drive with Macbook pro without losing data

    How to view Windows Xp programed Hard drive with Macbook pro with out losing data on hardrive

    Go to the First Aid tab in Disk Utility, select the external drive partition and read the format from the lower left, at the bottom.

  • How do I format a hard drive for data recovery?

    Hi,
    My intel iMac got written over with a bootable Windows XP. So I hooked up my sister's Powerbook PPC and in target disk mode I'm running File Salvage which is finding hundreds of thousands of files.
    Just ordered a G-Tech Quadra 500GB drive from Apple which is supposed to arrive Thursday. For now I'm going to save the File Salvage findings and then import them back to my sister's laptop to move to my new hard drive.
    I've never owned an external drive so a few questions. Do I need to format the drive first and if so how? Do I then need to load OSX Tiger onto the new drive? If so how do I do that? Am I using the OSX install on my sister laptop and booting that to my external drive? Or am I putting my intel version of OSX in my iMac and booting that to the external drive? A little confused how this all works.
    Can I partition the drive later on since I'll need at least 160GB to store all the files that File Salvage finds from my iMac.
    Ideally I'd like to partition the drive load Tiger on there and transfer over my files from one partition to the Tiger partition to make sure everything is intact first before doing and erase and install on my iMac. Is this possible and if so how? Which Tiger disk would I use the Powerbook or the iMac one?
    S.

    spiralgirl wrote:
    I got my drive and am about to partition but notice it's already been formatted at the factory but instead of being 500 GB it's like 465.5 GB and says that 180.8 MB have been used and there are 4 folders and 10 files when I look at the drive itself in Disk Utility.
    You are experiencing the "myth of the megabyte." Consider my MacBook Pro's "160 GB" hard drive. Disk Utility reports that the Total Capacity is "149.1 GB (160,041,885,696 Bytes)." See the trick: The size, when expressed in billions of bytes is less than the capacity expressed in GB, because each conversion from bytes to kilobytes (kB) to MB to GB involves a factor of 1/1024 (remember, this is binary math).
    So, scaling from my MacBook's internal drive:
    500 "GB" x 149 GB / 160 "GB" = 466 GB
    sounds like your drive is just about right.
    I doubled clicked the drive and see nothing inside so not sure why it's saying 10 files and 4 folders.
    Spotlight, Trash, and other "housekeeping" functions create hidden files. I don't understand why they would be taking up so much space on an empty drive (181 MB), but that won't matter once you repartition.
    Should I erase the drive first before partitioning it? Or just go ahead an partition?
    The process of partitioning, which is followed by formatting (see my previous post) will obliterate anything left on the drive (beyond the physical demarcation of sectors necessary for the drive to operate).
    So, if there is nothing on the drive to be preserved, you may proceed immediately.
    Please write back to let us know how things went.
    Message was edited by: Steve Davidson

  • How do I format second hard drive?

    i just installed a new Seagate Serial ATA 400GB hard drive. Now I can't figure out what to do in disk utility to format it - I see it in the first aid window, but what do I have to do to start using it? I was thinking I would see a second icon on my desktop, but I just have my macintosh HD ... how do I start saving things / moving things to the new HD?

    That was helpful - mac speak and all - but a few more questions before I hit the button ( just want to make sure i am not about to blow up my computer. under Volume Scheme I have the option of selecting anywhere from 1 - 16 partitions. Since I have no idea what this means ( must be mac speak - me no comprende) what should I be chosing. Then I see I can name it ( I think I can handle this part - I am somewhat creative and "name" is lingo I understand), then I see format ( I am guessing Mac OS Extended - Journaled) and size 372.61 ( I am guessing this is the right one, since the other is 74.5 - although I am sure there is a long explanation I wouldn't understand in my simple mind why these numbers don't match the numbers on the box ( like 400GB HD), but I digress... Now when I click "partition" a warning comes up that says something like "by doing this you will erase everything on this drive blah blah blah" which terrifies me cause it sounds like it translates as "you had better make sure you know what you are doing cuz one false move and are about to erase the all contents of the last three years of your life"...
    So, am I on the right track?

  • How can I format external hard drive for both Mac

    Hi, I want to use my Seagate external Hard Drive 1 TB on both Mac & Windows. I go to know that FAT 32 supports both but it can not transfer more than 4 GB data at a time. Is there some better alternative? Please suggest.

    As said above Use exFAT but do the formatting on a Windows PC as I have had problems of Windows seeing the drive when done on a Mac. Once done on a PC it was seen by both platforms.
    Also if you are running XP on the PC you may need an update for XP to see and use exFAT drives. It may be included with XP SP3, i'm not sure, but Microsoft has an update for both XP SP2 and SP3 so that exFAT drives are usable.

  • Step by Step how to re-format portable hard drive for pc and MAC

    Using a Mac book pro with Lion OS  Any help with this would be appreciated .

    TXNgage wrote:
    Using a Mac book pro with Lion OS  Any help with this would be appreciated .
    Easy.
    You should format the drive on the PC.
    For most compatability and for any files under 4GB in size format in Windows FAT32  (MSDOS on Mac)
    For any sized files 4GB or more, then format exFAT in Windows.
    If your running a Windows XP machine, search Microsoft for a free download and install exFAT for XP.
    FAT or exFAT can both be read and written too by Mac's and PC's alike.
    Most drives come from the factory already formatted FAT, if this is what you want then there is nothng you need to do.
    If Windows asks to format the drive then choose FAT or exFAT, but not NTFS.
    A bit harder, if you have no choice but to format the drive on the Mac, then open Apple's Disk Utility and hook up the drive, select tthe drive on the far right, it should be obvious with the drive makers name and size, select that it's on the far left.
    Now select Partition Tab, Options: MBR, format: MSDOS (FAT) or exFAT and click apply.
    that's it, but I suggest you format on the PC for better results.

  • How long to format external hard drive?

    I'm planing to use a 750GB Western Digital myBook external drive as my backup drive for Time Machine. I am using Disk Utility to format the drive as a Mac OS External (Journaled) volume. The drive has been formating for nearly 10 hours now, which seems to be way too long. There is a message next to the progress bar which reads "newfs_hfs: /dev/rdisk2s1: partition size not a multiple of 4K." I thought I would close Disk Utility and retry, but I got a warning not to interrupt an operation in progress.
    Should I force quit the Disk Utility, or should I wait it out a little longer? And, in layman's terms, what does the message mean?

    Ok, I did a little research and discovered that WD drives have problems being formatted with Disk Utility. I downloaded and installed a program called MacDrive 7 (it has a 5 day free trial). It's a Windows program, so I booted into Windows and was able to format the WD myBook as a Mac OS volume. Took 40 seconds! Time Machine is backing up my system on the WD drive as I am typing this. Don't know if I'm allowed to post links, but a search of MacDrive will easily get you to the program. Hope this helps anyone else who has problems with the WD drives.

  • How do I format Windows hard drive to Mac OSX?

    I have a 120gig hard drive that was just pulled from a Windows XP PC that I'd like to install in my G4. It does not allow me to install Mac OSX right from the first step from booting with a MacOSX install CD. It gives me an alert that says "The software cannot be installed in this computer" then asks me to Restart or Start Up Disk. Start Up Disk does not activate. Thanks for your help.
    Message was edited by: doublesie

    You can use FireWire Target Disk Mode on the iMac to mount the iMac's hard drive on the iBook's desktop. Then use the iBook to do the installation.
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583
    Note: If the iBook is currently using that same Mac OS X license, installing it on another Mac concurrently is not legal.

  • How do I format a hard drive for powermac g5

    My hard drive seems to have a problem.  It won't boot but when I put the installer disk in, it won't allow me to install to the hd.  I have osx 10

    10.6 or higher will not install on a PowerMac.
    10.5 will only install on PowerMacs with a G4 867 Mhz or higher or 1 Ghz or higher if it is a retail installer.
    That means MacBook, Mac Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac installer discs will not work on it.  The retail 10.5 installer must look like:
    If it is 10.5, and not say Upgrade, Dropin, or OEM on it.
    Early G5s came with 10.2.7 or later, and those G5s could install 10.3 retail, or 10.4 retail as well:
    Some though could only install 10.4 or 10.5, or 10.4.6 or 10.5 retail outside of their original discs.  Macs can't install operating systems older than they shipped with.
    Note Classic compatibility is gone with Mac OS X 10.5.  That means, you can't use original Mac OS 9 applications on the hard drive with 10.5 installed.  If you have the original discs, you can install Classic together with anything up to 10.4.11 on a separate Firewire or internal SATA hard drive.
    Use http://www.everymac.com/ to determine the age of your PowerMac, and tell us, and then figure out if you were using the wrong installer.

  • How to get data from hard drive in dead iMac?

    I have an old slot-loading iMac (350Mhz G3 blueberry) that just died, probably a dead power supply or something. Won't turn on at all. I don't care about restoring it, I just want to take the hard drive out and grab data from it. I've found instructions for removing the HD ... but any tips on the best/cheapest way to hook it up to get data from it? It's EIDE I believe from what I've read so far. Thanks for any help.

    Hey Richard.....Thanks for the reply to my question about my wife's dead iMac.....
    Her iMac had been acting up lately, mostly to do with her Outlook Express freezing up in OS9. I dunno if OS9 was freezing or if the application was failing. Regardless, I would have to quit OS9, restart Outlook which at the same time restarted OS9. All would be fine for a while, a day or two and then the scene would repeat itself. But I think that issue is separate from the iMac being "dead". Often we have power outages in the area, more than we should. I had the iMac plugged into a battery backup, some APS product I think it is. I believe it is only good for less than an hour as we have other devices drawing on it too. Most of our power outages are of short duration, just enough to be aggravating, sometimes having to reset clocks, etc...And a couple times, I would have to reset the time and date on the iMac so this told me that the PRAM battery was below minimum voltage. But the iMac would ALWAYS restart, even with the low battery. But the most recent outage, about one hour duration, did in the iMac, somehow or other. I do believe the battery backup basically fully discharged. So I removed the battery, could not find a new battery locally so I drove to the big city and paid the local Apple service dealer a visit. I got ripped big time price wise, embarrassed to say. So I get home, put the battery in the holder, depressed the CMU reset, the powerbutton illuminated as did a green LED by the memory modules for less than three seconds and then quit. I also heard the HD trying to spin up and a high voltage THUMP which I assume is the CRT trying to ignite. If I unplugged the iMac, removed the battery, plug in the power again and hit the power button, the iMac would repeat the same short on period and then quit. So it did not seem to make any difference if there was a battery in place. I read somewhere to pull the battery, pull the AC cord, hold down the power button to dump any current (?) and let the unit sit for 24hrs. After that length of time, I was supposed to replace the battery, depress the CMU reset, wait ten seconds and then feed it AC. Well, when I pressed the power button, I heard life for maybe five seconds, maybe a second longer, then a beep and then it shut down. I pulled the AC cord, pulled the battery, re-inserted the battery, depressed the CMU reset, waited a few seconds, plugged in the AC cord, depressed the power button and I am back at the under three seconds of "power-up" and then nothing, dead, no beep, nothing. I think maybe it is a waste of time trying to mess with this unit, looking for a newer iMac on eBay, the snowball series with the 17" LCD, might be time better spent. Hate throwing stuff away, that's why I am up to my ears in junk, maybe u know that scenario. The wife likes my 19" ACER LCD screen, hooked up to this old dual 800mhz, though she dislikes the noise and the tower. But we both agree the large LCD screen is much easier on our aging eyes than the old iMac CRT. Anyway, I appreciate your help, always GREAT to correspond with an Apple fan.....John Bauer

  • How do I clean my hard drive to re-sell without a working disc drive?

    I have macbook pro snow leopard. I wanted to clean my hard drive so all my files, informaion, and password get deleted so I can re-sell it. The problem is even though I have the installation disc, my disc drive isn't working... I tried putting my usb disc drive I got from apple, but the computer can't recognize it.
    Is there anyway I can clean my hard drive without having to use a disc drive?

    The easiest way to erase the HDD on the older MBP is to connect it to your newer MBP with a Firewire cable and set up Target disk mode.  Open Disk Utility>Erase on the controlling MBP and erase the Target MBP HDD.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ph3838
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661
    This way, no DVD drive, external or internal, is needed.
    Ciao.

Maybe you are looking for