How to reformat my hard drive

I have a macbook pro laptop. Right now it has mountain lion on it. I need to reformat the hard drive. I'm told that I need to install the start up disc in order to do that. So I use the original start up disc that came with the computer and then upgrade back up to Mountain Lion?
Also, how do i reformat the hard drive? I believe you do that with disk utility, is that correct? Do you go to applications, utilities, disk utility and then select Erase and go from there.

Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
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.
Erase the hard drive:
  1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
  2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
  3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
        the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
  4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

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    Message was edited by: DVX100Shooter

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    However, the drive may be suffering from other problems that reformatting won't fix.
    -DH

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  • How do i reformat my hard drive on mac mini late 2011 with yosemite before selling my mac

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  • I have a iMac 6,1 that I want to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard version 10.6.3 . I don't know how to reformat

    I have a iMac 6,1 that I need to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard version 10.6.3 . How do I reformat ?

    Boot the ssystem from the OS DVD. Once it is booted run Disk Utiltiy. Select OS Extrended (Journled)
    See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3910?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

  • HT1386 I have had to reformat my hard drive. I have installed windows 7 and want to know how to transfer the songs on my iPad back to the newly installed iTunes on my compute?

    have had to reformat my hard drive. I have installed windows 7 and want to know how to transfer the songs on my iPad back to the newly installed iTunes on my compute?

    Copy all the content on your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes. Then go ahead and sync the iPod with your new library.
    See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
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  • How long does it take to reformat a hard drive and do a system recovery?

    I have a Satellite 2405-S201 that was infected with a virus. I decided to use the Toshiba recovery discs that came with the computer to reformat the hard drive and restore the system to its original factory status. I started with the recovery process using Disc 1 and it now seems stuck. Its been at least 2 hours since I started and the screen is blank. Occasionally the CD drive spins up but nothing else seems to happen. Any ideas on what I should do next? Should I leave it be and see what happens? Or should I attempt to restart the process? Something else?

    When my imac was new in 2002 the drive turned out to be defective. Apple replaced it, but it still took about a week, even with the part in stock at the local (US) Apple Store. I would expect it to take longer these days, when it's an outdated machine and so not one requiring parts they'd likely have in stock.

  • I have 750gb of photos on external hard drives from my pc. how do I download then to my Mac and reformat the hard drives as backup drives for my Mac?

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  • How big of a hard drive for 15" G4 667

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  • Lost iTunes in reformat of hard drive

    How do I upgrade my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 without losing everything on my iPhone? I had to reformat the hard drive in my computer due to problems with my OS and lost the iTunes loaded with all that information like playlists, music, photos, apps etc.
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    it only took so long because i have a crappy internet connection i think it downloads basically the files from the recovery partition from online.
    i lost the recovery partition by formatting my drive when restoring a time machine backup,  and when that installation wouldn't let me past the login screen i restarted going into the internet recovery, it took around 1.5hrs to download the necessary files (~1mb connection ) and loaded straight into what looked like the recovery partition, now in order to partition my hard drive for windows(says i have a broken partition map, fixing that can only be done outside of the operating system).
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  • After reformatting my hard drive, I lost some of my apps and have to pay to get them back. What do I do?

    My OS got corrupted, so I had to reformat my hard drive and in the process lose all the data on my hard drive. This includes apps that were included in my MacBook when I first got it such as Facetime, while others are at their pre-Yosemite versions. I can't reinstall them since I have to pay for them, while the other apps like iMovie and Garage Band can't be updated and also require payment. How do I get these apps back? I use a Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 15" running on 10.10.1. Bought it at around February or March 2014

    Hey JeromeAM,
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    http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht2519
    Hide and unhide purchases in the Mac App Store
    http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4928
    Take care,
    -Norm G. 

  • Had to reformat my hard drive- PLEASE HELP!

    Hi everyone,
    I hope someone can somehow help me. I tried tech support but they didn't have much to offer in the way of iTunes support. I own a video ipod. I manually loaded each of the albums I had stored in my "my music" folder on my laptop into iTunes and then onto my Ipod.
    All transfering and syncing has been done on my laptop. I recently had to reformat the hard drive on my laptop. Prior to doing so, I was able to move my music files to my desktop however I do not have Itunes loaded and running on my desktop. I now have "RE" downloaded the iTunes software to my laptop but I'm scared to sync it because I know it's going to "wipe" out my IPOD.
    Can someone accurately advise me on how I might go about getting my music files back into my iTunes library without having to make backup cd's of some 200 albums or manually reloading each album. Is there anyway of doing this without wiping my Ipod clean? There's got to be a fairly easy way to do this.
    Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
    Thanks
    Shooey

    You should be able to move your iTunes music folder from your desktop (where iTunes is not installed) to your laptop where it is. Set up your iTunes on the laptop to specify where you want your iTunes music folder to be (in advanced preferences), quit itunes, then move your files from the desktop. Start up iTunes and it should all work.
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    Note: don't discard that backup on your desktop until you make sure everything works OK, including syncing your iPod.
    Ed

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