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.

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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

HT201376 I've erased and formatted the hard drive accordingly in order to reinstall OS X. everything went fine until about half way through the install. it just seems to stop. how long should this take? should i do something else to speed it up?

I've erased and formatted the hard drive accordingly in order to reinstall OS X. everything went fine until about half way through the install. it just seems to stop. how long should this take? should i do something else to speed it up?

About all you can do is wait until it finishes or you get an error message.

How can I remove the hard drive from an iMac g4 before recycling it?

How can I remove the hard drive from an iMac g4 before recycling it?

There are take-apart guides online. For example
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/imac_g4/imacg4_takeapart.html
However, you can also consider securely erasing the hard drive instead. You can do this using a Mac OS X installation disc with a version that your iMac G4 can boot from the optical drive. If this is a viable option, please post back (include Mac OS X version on installation disc).

I have a Seagate 2TB external hard drive partitioned with one partition of Snow Leopard (my computer is running Lion). Can't seem to reboot using the option key. Any ideas as to what's wrong?

I have a Seagate 2TB external hard drive with 3 partitions, one for Snow Leopard - my computer has Lion. I cannot seem to boot from this hard drive but I could yesterday. Any ideas?

Didnt help. The night I asked this question I was able to reboot from the external hard drive after running Disk repair (which said everything was fine). Tonight I have tried again and cannot boot from the external. So I tried the Safe Mode restart and then chose restart with the option key held down as well as shutting down and trying holding down the option key while turning on the power. I have never been able to reboot just choosing restart and holding down the option key. Whenever the reboot from the external has worked I've had to shut down and hold the option key while turning the power on. Now that is not working. My computer is brand new as is the hard drive. I don't know where to go from here.
I can access the drive just fine while I'm in Lion. I just can't boot up using it. Help!

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 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 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 do I format mac hard drive that is now NTFS with windows vista

Addressed in http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2176
I can only see windows and cannot see boot camp
I can see via windows the drives but nothing I have seen allows me to get back to Snow Leopard
I guess I need to for mat mac mac dive form windows ??
Message was edited by: mr-internet

control/alt did it but on a wired keyboard
Then boot apple erase disk and go again

How do I replace the Hard drive in my iMac?

I have a GREEN iMac (333 Mhz, 128 MB RAM, and a tray loading CD-ROM in front) and the original OS is OS 9.1 and I upgraded to OS X 10.3.5. When I installed Panther, it took up just about all of my HDD. I have a Western Digital 10 GB HDD and I want to Install it and then re-install Panther but I can not figure out how to get to the HDD to remove it. I have see posts for the RED and GREY iMacs, but they did not look like mine so I am not sure they would be revelent, or are they? I am a NEWLY converted MAC person from IBM PC's. HELP!!
Worf
iMac G3 333 mhz (Green) Mac OS 9.1.x CD-ROM Tray Loader

The firmware upgrade can only be done while booted from a writeable drive (CD-ROM is not good enough) running Mac OS 9.1 to 9.2.2.
Once the firmware update is in, it should accept up to the two SO-DIMMs I described above.
Hard drives up to just under 128 GB (which sometimes reads like 137 GB because of binary-to-decimal conversion) should be supported. There are size limits, and an older drive may throw off too much heat to be reliable and long-lived in that enclosure.
This article indicates that tray-load iMacs are on the list of "OSX must be installed on a partition completely within the first 8 GB of the drive":
106235- Mac OS X: Disk Appears Dimmed (or "Grayed Out") in the Installer

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

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