How to unpartition a mac hard drive on OSX 10.7.4?

I have tried using Windows in the past, and I want to put everything back on to one large OSX partition.
However, I get a certain error message when I try to return it to one unified disk.
It says:
                Your disk could not be returned to a single partition.
                An error occured while restoring the disk to a single partition.

The easiest way to remove it is to use Disk Utility.
Can't stress this enough. Backup, backup, backup! before doing any of the following. And I don't mean Time Machine. Also be aware that you will not have an emergency drive to boot to, or restore OS X from. So first having a backup on a bootable drive is essential, since you could restore that. To make a complete, bootable clone, use SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. You can also use Disk Utility to clone one drive to another.
1) Make the Recovery partition visible in Disk Utility by using a program like Secrets: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/27025/secrets . Install the System Preference pane by double clicking the downloaded pref pane. Open the System Preferences and click on Secrets. Click on the Disk Utility heading at the left. At the right, turn on the check box for "Show Hidden Partitions". Click the "Update Secrets" button at the lower left. Close the System Preferences.
2) Launch Disk Utility. Highlight the Recovery partition, right click on it and select Mount the partition. Or highlight the partition and click the Mount icon at the top of Disk Utility's pane.
3) With the Recovery partition highlighted, erase the partition. You may get an error message, ignore it.
4) In the left column, highlight the physical drive the Recovery partition is on. Then select the Partition tab at the right.
5) Highlight the Recovery partition and press the minus sign.
6) Click and hold on the bottom edge of the partition above and drag it to the bottom, if it doesn't go there automatically, the press apply.

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