Reset macintosh hard drive while it is partitioned?

I was wondering if it was safe to reset the Mac hard drive while it is bootcamped/partitioned. Also what would happen to the partition part?

Timmyboy1992 wrote:
I was wondering if it was safe to reset the Mac hard drive while it is bootcamped/partitioned. Also what would happen to the partition part?
You can reinstall OS X over itself into the Macintosh HD partition to fix a issue, leaving most of your programs and files alone.
See #8 Reinstall Just OS X here: Step by Step to fix your Mac
You can erase the Macintosh HD partition; OS X, all programs and files gone; then install OS X again fresh into it.
You can erase the ENTIRE drive, this will delete ALL partitions on the drive including Macintosh HD and BootCamp partitions.
See #20: Erase and Install OS X: Step by Step to fix your Mac
Selecting just one partiton to affect change on doesn't affect the other partitions on the drive.
You do have to be extremely careful what you select in Disk Utility on the left side before you go clicking Apply.
The indented names on the left are partitions on the main drive at the top, select the main drive and it affects everything on it.
In 10.6 it's rather easy to make a mistake and erase the entire drive from the 10.6 installer disks
In 10.7 and 10.8 it's rather hard to erase the entire drive, but possible.
You can't affect change to any partition while booted from it. You have to be booted from another medium or partition.

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