[How] Reformart Startup Drive

I am wanting to reformat my start up drive.
I assume after reformat, as I want it fresh and clear, the OS is not installed. I want to subsequently install the OS onto the drive.
I have downloaded the Mountain Lion OS from the App Store. I then made a bootable flash drive with it.
I am unsure what to do now. From what I read, but don't really trust, is that I need to insert the drive that I have made with the aid of the following instructions:
http://www.cultofmac.com/180925/how-to-make-a-bootable-disk-or-usb-drive-of-os-x -mountain-lion/
Now that I have the disk. I read that I need to boot into recovery holding COMMAND+R during boot up.
After I am in I reformat the hard drive and somehow reinstall the OS.
Confused, tired and in need of some help if possible.
Cheers,
46

Ok so this is what you are saying:
#1. Insert USB into mac
#2. Reboot mac and when restarting press and hold the "option" key.
#3. Select the USB as my Startup Disk.
However from there how do I reformatt my Macintosh HD drive? Is there an option or selection to choose disk utility from there? I thought you can only select your Mac Startup Disk from there no?
If you can, after selecting your startup disk, reformat via Disk Utility please do let me know.

Similar Messages

How do I install a new startup drive

My startup drive on my Mac Pro running Mac OS X 10.7.5 is full and I need to replace it with a 2T drive. How do I go about changing over the data and rebooting with the new drive?

Put the new drive into one of the empty bays.
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Quit DU and boot from the Recovery HD:
Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new disk drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

How to access address book that is not on startup drive

I have an external hard drive that is from an old computer of mine. How do I access the address book on that drive without making it my startup drive first?
Thanks.

easy on all caps there
you can do the following to combine address books. start Address book, select all the contacts currently in your address book and drag them to the desktop. that will create one big vcard with those contacts. then quit address book and replace the folder that I told you about with the one from the backup drive. start address book. it will look like it did on the backup drive. drop the vcard you have on the desktop onto the address book. the addresses will be imported.
warning: this procedure will migrate all addresses but will destroy any groups and smart groups you currently have in AB.

How do I choose a default startup drive?

I have two startup drives on my Hard Drive. One is Snow Leopard and the other is Leopard. I need Leopard for some printing issues with Photoshop and Epson. How do I choose a default startup drive? Most of the time I want the Snow Leopard drive at startup but it seems to always start up on Leopard. I need to always hold down the option key at startup. Sometimes I forget.

noondaywitch wrote:
System Preferences > Startup Dive > select the drive with 10.6.x I suspect you may need to do that for both systems. Click the lock to prevent further changes, then do an option-boot and ensure it'll let you start from the other.
Macs store a reference to the default startup drive set in System Preferences > Startup Drive in PRAM, so you don't have to set it individually for each drive or partition -- as long as the selected one is available at startup time, that is the one the Mac will start up from. (Otherwise, it will be the first available one found. If none capable of starting up the Mac are found instead the flashing slashed circle with the question mark in it won't go away, indicating the Mac is still waiting for you to make one available, for instance by powering up an attached external drive or inserting a bootable DVD.)
The option key startup method temporarily overrides this & allows you to choose another drive or partition, but just for that startup -- the next time you start up normally, it will revert to the selected one.
Also, the lock in System Preferences has nothing to do with making preference settings permanent or persistent. It is just a security feature to prevent unauthorized users from making changes from an already logged in user account. For instance, it makes no difference if the lock is closed or open at startup time, because that is before the OS is running or able to check preference file settings stored on disks. During the early stages of the boot process, code resident in firmware checks for depressed keys & buttons before loading the OS from the default source set in PRAM. This is how it decides if it should instead run the Startup Manager (evoked by the option key), first eject a CD or DVD (evoked by the eject key or primary mouse button), or start up from an alternate source like an installer DVD (evoked by the C key).

Startup Drive full. What should I move to an external drive and how?

Startup Drive full. What should I move to an external drive and how? By "how" I mean what would the steps be to move photos and music so I could take them off the Startup Drive.

iPhoto: How to move the Library folder to a new location
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
See also:
iPhoto: Issues with FAT32-formatted drives

How to create an alternate startup drive?

I upgraded to 10.8.3 from the Internet and therefore do not have a boot DVD since buying Snow Leapard.
I need to create an alternate startup disk.
How do I do this with Mountain Lion using an external HD (WD myBook) connected via USB?
TIA!!

Clone your current system to your external drive. This will erase the target drive so be sure you don't have anything on the drive that you don't want to lose. Alternatively, create a separate partition on the drive for the clone. You will need enough free space on the drive to hold everything that is on your startup volume.
Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

How do I create a new startup drive?

Once I get a larger drive installed to replace the 80 GB drive that came with my G5, what is the safest way to create the new startup drive?

Gi-
The best way to get going on a new drive is, after formatting the drive with Disk Utility, download SuperDuper and clone the old drive to the new drive.
The free version is excellent, and totally reliable,
The paid version makes keeping backup clones easy.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

How do I copy my startup drive to a new drive.

I have a 2009 MacPro running 10.7.5. I have a 3tb drive and would like to copy my old startup drive to it. My time machine drive has crashed and I do not have the option of copying from it.
Thanks for your help,
ballhawkers

Use a program such as the Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper to clone it.
(109951)

Using Time Machine for an external startup drive

I've never used Time Machine; I just kept on using my older backup startup drive software when starting with Leopard three years ago.
My husband is getting a new iMac with an external drive for backup because I convinced him that Time Machine is so easy to use. Yes, I have a lot of faith that Apple knows what it is doing.
However, I don't know how Time Machine works for making an external drive bootable. If it's not super easy for that purpose, I'm thinking that it might be easier to partition his external in setting things up for him, and putting SuperDuper! on one of the partitions.
What do you think? Would Time Machine all by itself be super easy if he needed to startup from the external drive? Do you have to do anything other than to hold down the option key during startup to boot from an external drive backed up by Time Machine?
He's getting an iMac with a 1T drive and an external Iomega 2TB eGo Desktop Hard Drive.
I'm assuming that his new iMac will be coming with Snow Leopard, but it hasn't arrived yet and I don't know for sure about that. But I think if it doesn't come with Snow Leopard, I'd upgrade it for him before installing anything else.
Thanks for any help!
Mary

Thanks so much to you for taking the trouble to help me learn something about Time Machine. I think I've learned enough now to get it set up for my husband without doing anything particularly stupid.
Dave, there's no chance my husband would swing for a second external drive. I had to talk him into having one at all. He's not into managing a computer and doesn't want to think about stuff like backups. Once in awhile I'm in synch with that kind of orientation too, but then I recall the times I've been overjoyed to have good backups for myself... and my backup software is extremely reliable and easy to use.
Pondidni and Thomas, thanks so much for all the links. I've spent enough time reading them that I think I've made up my mind to go with a SuperDuper! partition for the expected way to boot from the external drive. It's also a great reassurance that it would be possible to use a Time Machine backup partition for restoration via an install CD if SuperDuper! should fail, though. SuperDuper! did fail for me once, but fortunately I had another partition with a SuperDuper! backup.
If the single backup drive fails, of course, that would be a nasty inconvenience. On the other hand, at this point I doubt that the actual losses in that unlikely event would impact my husband so horribly as it might for many who have work or school-related necessities stored on their computer. This is mainly a fun computer that he has at home, and if there ever are particularly important documents that he can't afford to lose, extra backups of those files could go onto a CD, DVD, or keychain drive. The chances of needing that are pretty slim.
I know that eventually the backup drive will fail if it's used over a long enough period of time, but he seems ready to follow my advice to only even connect and turn on the external drive once a week and leave it connected only during the time it's actually actively making backups. (Unless some very important work is going on, in which case he knows to keep it connected during that period of time.) An external drive will likely last a good while longer than average under that kind of very limited use.
Thomas, I do also believe in having extra backup external drives and hope to get one for my own computer in the near future. I noticed in shopping for my husband how much less expensively you can get a large external drive now than just a few years back.
Thanks again so much to all for helping me to think through how I can help him get started with his own backups.
Best wishes,
Mary

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

Glenfern wrote:
The reason I'm considering partitioning is - I'm going to transfer about 50 GB of family photos & music to the iMac. Over time the photos & music library is going to grow. My idea was to point the iphoto & itunes library to the new partition so that the application programs (that will will reside in partition 1), will not get congested with photos & music over time & degrade performance. Also, I dabble a little bit with the music editing program LOGIC & Sound Track Pro, which creates lots of little music files in the process.
In your case I would strongly recommend against partitioning, as dwb mentions a drive loaded with data on an
O SX system doesn't equate to performance loss. However partitioning does. If you were going to tell me you were partitioning to load different OS's on the computer then you would have a good reason to think about partitioning. My suggestion is do not partition.
What I would also recommend is getting some high quality high speed external HD's to store your photo and music libraries on. This helps keept the 2GB drive available while maintaining performance. I have 3 external HD's attached to my iMac, two are backup drives (1 Time Machine & 1 Bootable Clone) the third drive is for storing my my music, photo & movie libraries on. If you go this route the 3 drives I'd recommend are:
http://g-technology.com/products/g-drive.cfm
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10330
Personally I use the Lacie's however OWC or G-Tech would also be welcome on my desk.
Again if you want to take this path Apple has instructions for how to move the libraries to EHDs, if you want those links let me know.

Mirrored Raid on Startup Drive?

Can I set up a Mirrored RAID with my Startup Drive without loosing the data?
I have a G5 Dual 1.8 running the latest OSX. I want to add a second internal HD, then setup a Mirrored RAID from my Startup Disk to my newly installed second internal drive. How do I set up this RAID without loosing anything on my startup drive? The new Drive will be the same size as my startup drive. I want the second drive as a backup startup drive.
Kevin Hawkins

Hi Kevin Hawkens;
What do you expact to gain by having a mirrored RAID?
Allan

Using MacBook Pro as startup drive?

I need to use some copy-protected apps that are on my MacBook Pro, but I want to use my Mac Pro with dual display to access those apps.
Is there anyway I can use my MacBook Pro as a startup drive? If so, how is this accomplished?
Thanks!

Is there anyway I can use my MacBook Pro as a startup drive?
Yes, if its OSX is new enough.
If so, how is this accomplished?
FireWire Target Disk Mode.
<http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661>
Boot the MacBook Pro while holding the "T" key. Connect a FireWire cable between the computers. Boot the Mac Pro while holding Option, then select the MacBook Pro drive for booting.
This will have the Mac Pro running from the MacBook Pro's drive, but probably won't run the protected software if its key is based on the CPU serial number since it will be that of the Mac Pro.

"startup drive full" error - help

I have gotten a "startup drive full" error a couple of times while using Microsoft Word. It usually occurs when I am trying to save something. My drives are no where near full. What is causing this? How do I fix it?

One of the reasons (when one exists) for a startup drive full message,
could be if the computer has several temporary files and virtual memory
files on the hard disk drive; this could happen if you have insufficient
installed chip RAM and the computer is using HDD free-space as RAM.
And if you are multi-tasking in Mac OS X, there may be a point where
the drive is fully in-use. The utility "Activity Monitor" could tell you what
is happening in the system at different intervals and perhaps you could
tell what is running in there and using a lot of virtual memory; and also
what that utility says is going on elsewhere at the same time.
You may have to boot the computer from the Installer disc and use
the version of Disk Utility on that (in the Installer's menubar is where
you find options, other than running the installer on that disc) to run
'repair disk.' There also may be some caches and other files on the
drive which are not properly being cleared after quitting applications
or after saving works in progress.
A variety of maintenance tasks can be performed to help the Mac
run better; and maybe these are overdue. I use an easy way out
and do not boot into the single user or other modes to do house-
keeping chores in OS X 10; the software (runs free) I choose to
have do these, on occasion, is called OnyX and is a download
from Titanium Software online. An easy search, to get there and
see the correct download for the OSX version your machine runs.
The OnyX 'automation' selection has several check-boxes and
a few times a year, I run all of the options shown there; otherwise
I only run the default set, and then have the utility automatically
restart itself afterward. There are settings in the OnyX preferences.
Not sure what else may be going on in the computer's hard disk
drive; but to use the boot/install disc's Disk Utility to 'repair disk'
and also to verify or see the status of SMART, may tell you if
the hard disk drive is starting to fail. (Although it could stop work-
ing and not say it was failing; checking anyway, is easy enough.)
If you have a third-party disk utility such as Drive Genius or
maybe DiskWarrior, these may be able to check and repair
some aspects of the hard disk drive's files. Some of these
tools are better at some tasks than others; and so I am not
sure which one(s) are best at specific jobs. Each is a bit
different and so there are times where having more than one
could be very handy... if one knew what they did, and when
to use one over another third-party disk utility. (I don't!)
At some point, it is very handy to have an externally enclosed
FireWire hard disk drive, and be knowledgeable and practiced
in making bootable clones of the computer's hard disk drive
and the contents there in. This can give you great backups
with the ability to clone the complete disk image back as it
was, but on to a repaired or low-level reformatted HDD. I use
a free-running utility to clone, Carbon Copy Cloner.
Hopefully a fix as simple as using the Disk Utility found in
the installer (hold C key on startup with disc in optical drive)
and do not launch the installer, use Disk Utility from menubar;
and 'repair disk' may help. If there is a defect in the Hard Disk
Drive (HDD) a repair may help; or a more invasive approach
may be required, to include other tools in the Disk Utility, which
could totally erase all your stuff plus the OS from that hard drive.
Not sure how much experience you have in any of this; so at
this point...
Good luck & happy computing!

Startup drive at top on desktop... possible...?

i recall in system 9, the startup drive was always at top right... toppamost-rightamost..
not the case anymore... it's user modified... by mere placement...
i'd like to instantly see which drive or partition is my current startup volume...
by having the startup volume first and toppamost...
how...?
thanx...
M

As ‘WZZZ’ wrote, it was in Leopard that Apple abandoned the time-honoured placement of the boot volume’s icon in the top right corner.
The easiest way to see which volume you are booted from is to go to About this Mac from the Apple Icon in the MenuBar
...or double-click on a volume icon on the desktop and in the window that opens (root level) look at the icon of Applications, Users, System or Library. Those will be ‘special’ icons only on the boot volume.
If you manually move the boot volume to the top right it should remain there for subsequent boots -- but note that if the volume is used for cloning a re-cloning may alter the placement again.
Bottom line: Don't suspect that you have something amiss, don't try altering settings -- the 'fix' has to come from Apple.
Andreas

New 1.5 Tb startup drive gives "program error"

I installed a much larger startup drive on my Mac G5 (1.5 Tb). I did a fresh install of Photoshop CS but whenever I try to start a new file or open an old one I get the dreaded "could not create new document because of a program error" message.
Tried dumping the preferences. Still doesn't work. But using the same copy of Photoshop after starting with a different (smaller) startup drive works. It also works if I start the Mac in safe mode.
So I suspect the 1.5 Tb drive as a startup device but don't know how to fix it.

Is it a Seagate 1.5 TB drive? If so it might need a firmware update. Did you get the Drive from Newegg?
If so more then likely it might need a update firmware or actually you may have to reset the serial number as they have had issues with internal and external drives which have a specific glitch were the serial numbers are eronious and there is a way to fix it contact Seagate or look for the issue on their site.
If it is not Seagate then it is probably not the drive. If it is Seagate and this is the problem it will probably crash anyway. So the good news is once the problem is fixed it works like a charm.
I have an external one which does not have the problem and have been working with it for almost three months and it works very well and is fortunately not one of the bugged out items.
Good luck I actually hope you have one with the problem as it is easy to fix and easy to determine if you have one that has this problem. The drive is good just the setting of the serial or perhaps it was the firmware number.
Contact Seagate if that is your drive. They have since fix the problem so you really should not have gotten an older one.

[How] Reformart Startup Drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for