Reformatting hard drive without disk

How do I reformat my internal harddrive without the osx disk, I recieved this laptop while I was in school. It came with the operating system already installed and I never got a OSX disk. I currently run os 10.5.8.

You cannot. I would buy a copy of Snow Leopard. If you need to purchase Snow Leopard, you can still purchase a copy from Apple's online store's telesales agents.[1-800-MY-APPLE (1-800-692-7753) or Customer Service and Sales Support at 1-800-676-2775.] Ask for a Sales Representative.
Third-party sources for Snow Leopard are:
Snow Leopard from Amazon.com
Snow Leopard from eBay
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store.
This will be less costly than trying to locate Leopard plus it can put you on track to Lion or Mountain Lion.
Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications.
Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
Xserve (Early 2009)

Similar Messages

How do I reformat hard drive without affecting recovery partition?

I would like to know how I can reformat my Toshiba hard drive without affecting the hidden recovery partition? I would like to get rid of the preinstalled Windows 7 OS and replace it with Windows XP, which is not as bloated. Also, does anyone know of a good 'free' disk scrubber program? I actually have the original 'disk scrubber' software, but the software disk just won't work any more. Finally, I tried to get the computer ready for the drive scrubbing, but I still can't change the disk order on my Toshiba laptop. I did get into the 'bios' screen by hitting the F8 key on startup, which did bring up the 'boot menu' screen. When I selected the cd/dvd drive and then hit the F10 key to save the change, nothing happened! I put in a data disk, but the laptop still booted into the Windows 7 OS. If I can't get the laptop to boot into the cd/dvd drive, I don't think that I can erase the hard drive and put Windows XP on since I wouldn't be able to boot up the laptop with the Windwos XP disk. Is that true? Anyway, without changing the boot order, I can't do anything. Please help! Thanks!

If you use the recovery that is on the hidden partition (hold down the zero key while starting up computer) then your OS reinstall will not affect that hidden partition, just overwrite the c: drive.
L305-S5955, T9300 Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 60GB SSD, Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Reformatting hard drive without deleting files

Hi, I have a hard drive in one of the bays on my early 2008 Mac Pro that is formatted to ‘Mac OS Extended’ this hard disk contains my itunes library. I want to reformat the drive to ‘Mac OS Extended - Journaled’ Can I do this without losing all the existing files? Or should I make a copy, erase the drive then copy the files back onto the new journaled drive?

You aren't reformatting. But I would always always no matter what clone my system and have two or three backup sets and different types for redundancy. Bootable backup clones are easy to maintain and handy, say 10.;8.5 didn't go right, or you want to hold off on iTunes 11.1 or even test it on another system drive first. Clone has many good uses.
To turn journaling on and off using Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility (located in Applications/Utilities).
Select the volume to enable or disable journaling on.
To enable, click the Enable Journaling button or choose Enable Journaling from the File menu.
To disable journaling, choose Disable Journaling from the File menu.
Note: In Mac OS X 10.4 and later, press Option to make Disable Journaling visible in the File menu.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2355
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Disk+Utility+Journaling+HFS

How do i reformat a hard drive without losing anything on it?

I just got a message that I need to back up and reformat my external hard drive. I know very little about this process and would like to know how to do so and if this is possible without losing anything on it.

If you reformat a drive, you will lose whatever information/files are on it. So, the only way to save your info is to copy it to another drive temporarily, reformat your drive (use Disk Utility and format using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the GUID Partition scheme under Options) and then you can copy your information back.

How do I reformat hard drive when I can't erase the disk?

Machine: imac, OS 10.6.8
Initial Problem: Finder kept crashing for all users immediately after start up. As a result I was unable to try trashing finder preferences as recommended in this forum and elsewhere.
Attempted solutions:
1. Initially seemed unable to boot from Snow Leopard Installation Disk
2. Connected to another imac using firewire and booting problem computer into target mode
3. Ran Techtool pro from master machine. Hard drive and hardware fine but reported need to format disk on target machine.
4. Tried to install new os onto target drive using disk drive on master machine. Error message reported being unable to find target drive, even though it was showing on desktop of master machine
5. Tried to erase disk using disk utility on master machine, but error message stating unable to unmount target drive
6. Successfully rebooted using snow leopard installation disk, but unable to instal. Error message stated that the computer was not available. i.e. it had the yellow triangle with exclamation masrk
7. Tried to erase hard drive using disk utility from installation disk, but was unable to do so. The process commenced to unmount the disk, started to erase but stopped before task completed. Tried a second time with same result.
Obviously the machine needs complete reformatting. I made a backup before starting this series of unsuccessful attempts. I suspect that I need to use terminal from the installation disk, but I am not sure which terminal command to use.
Can anyone tell me? Or have I overlooked some simpler solution?

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/Mountain 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.

How do i wipe my hard drive, without the set up disk. im deployed in Afghanistan and dont have access to the disk

i am depolyed and do not have my disk here. is there anyway i can wipe my hard drive without it?

Back up all data, then boot into Recovery mode, launch Disk Utility, select the startup volume, and erase it.

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 can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

how can i reformat my external hard drive without loosing any data?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
It's impossible to format a hard drive without losing the data. One thing you can do before formatting is to copy the files from the external drive to your internal drive, and then, format the external drive. After formatting, copy the files to the external drive again, and everything will be as before formatting it

How to merge hard drives without using Disk Utility?

Hi,
Disk Utility has no visible 'Partition' tab when I click on a hard drive, so I am wondering if there is a way to merge my hard drives without using it?
A possible reason for the Partition tab not being visible is that my MacBook was set up by adminstrators at my school, and perhaps they have locked the hard drive so I cannot merge them.
Is there any way to get around that?
Thanks!

Yes, you cannot Partition a Partition, even if it's just one Partition, you must Partition the whole disk, which may erase all your data... I forget which version of OSX it changed to allow resizing Partitions.

How do you fix bad blocks on an external hard drive without using disk utility

so basically does anyone know how to fix bad blocks on a external hard drive without using disk utlility please

Oh...if you have data you are trying to save then its best to try cloning the drive to another one, which should save its data as-is to another drive. Hopefully you can do so without there being hangups around the bad blocks and keep at least most of your data intact. I'd recommend you try using Carbon Copy Cloner to do this, but you will need a secondary drive that is at least the size of the data on the problematic drive.

I have been using an external hard drive on a PC, I have now moved over to a macbookpro, is there a way to reformat the hard drive without deleting the files currently on the hard drive?

I have been using an external hard drive on a PC, I have now moved over to a macbookpro, is there a way to reformat the hard drive without deleting the files currently on the hard drive?

if it's fat32 then the mac can read it without problems
if it's ntfs then you can install programs which make it possible to write to it too otherwise it's read only

How to upgrade hard drive without resinstalling Mac OS X

Hello everyone. I have a MacBook Pro 17'' with the original 160GB HD but now I want to upgrade my hard drive to a Seagate 500GB. My question is, how can I upgrade the HD without reinstalling and setting up all my stuff again?
Can this be done with TimeMachine and a Time Capsule? Any other option?
Thanks in advance.
David

yes, this can be done with Time machine. you'll need an external drive (could be a Time capsule or a directly attached drive). make backup of your current system. then replace the hard drive. then boot from the leopard install DVD and use the system restore utility in the utilities menu at the top to restore your old system from the backup onto the new hard drive. note that the new drive should be properly formatted: Mac os extended journaled format with GUID partition scheme. you'll most have to reformat the drive using disk utility first before using the restore utility.
another option is to put your old hard drive into an external hard drive enclosure (USB or firewire), install the new hard drive in the MB, then boot from the external drive and clone it to the new internal. you can use CCCloner or Superduper for cloning. again, reformat the new internal first. or you can clone your internal to an external (if you have a regular external drive but don't have an enclosure), then replace the internal drive, boot from the external and clone it back to the internal.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Reinstall OSX and Reformat Hard Drive

I have an older MacBook Pro that I am trying to clean up and sell. I cannot find the original CDs that came with the computer that have the OSX install and applications on them. What I do have is a Snow Leopard install DVD but I cannot figure out how to reformat the hard drive with Snow Leopard. I'm only figuring out how to do an upgrade install which does not refomrat the hard drive.
Will it be possible for me to do reformat the drive without those original CDs? What if I upgrade to Mavericks?
Thanks!

Thanks for help. I'm looking at the Disk Utility option now after putting the Snow Leopard disk in. I'm a bit confused... If I choose erase disk, wouldn't that totally wipe the hard drive and the current OSX on the machine and NOT install a new version? Would I then need to boot from the OSX disk after erasing the hard drive to install Leopard?

Can I recover data from a reformatted hard drive? I did not do a back up prior to talking to Apple Support and the guy having me delete the hard drive and start anew. My bad but is all lost??

Can I recover data from a reformatted hard drive? I did not complete a back up prior to talking to Apple Support and the guy having me delete the hard drive (10.5.8) and start anew (10.6.3). My bad but is all lost?? Years of very important information....

You will need to purchase reovery sofware such as such as FileSalvage
http://subrosasoft.com/software/filesalvage
You can download a demo copy that will tell you what it can recover
If you want to recover that you must pay for the software then
When you do the recovery, you will need another disk drive to receive the recovered files
Having install a new operating system on the disk after the retformat is going to gradually reduce the amount of data that this software will be able to recover for you
Allan

Unable to verify or repair my external hard drive with disk utility, reason being ...

Hello there,
I have been facing this problem: After I started getting an error 50 error while trying to view in Quicktime player a movie which I had exported from FCPX today, I found that I was not even able to trash the movie [this was a test movie used for export and I had no need for the same]. A little while later when I opened FCPX, I found this message pop up:
Got a little worried and then tried to verify and repair my hard drives using disk utility, but I could neither verify nor repair the disk. What should I do now?

Hello Klaus,
I think I have been able to overcome the problem/s.
I have been using my Seagate 2 TB drive [2 USB] with a FW adapter and was using FW connectivity for the past several months without any problems. About 2 months ago I added a 2 TB Lacie, FW, to my workflow and this EHD was daisychained to the Seagate. Had been facing no problem with this arrangement until today.
Now let me try to tell you what I had done:
I ejected the Seagate drive with the intention of reconnecting it again. But, no, when I tried to reconnect, this message came up:
After several attempts, I did this, connected the Lacie by FW to the FW port on the Mac and connected the Seagate by 2 USB. Was I glad to see my Seagate HD icons shining in all their glory on my desktop! I utilised the services of disk utility and was informed that these prodigal sons were absolutely fine.
I also tried to do this: empty the trash. Was I happy to hear the sound of files being cast out?
Well, well, at least I will be able to get some peaceful sleep now! I have not yet opened FCPX, but I trust it will also be reading the Seagate HD once again.
Good night and thanks for being helpful.

Reformatting hard drive without disk

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