Wiping OSX 10.4.11
Hello,
I'm trying to do a wipe on my old iMac that is running 10.4.11. We want to wipe it so it can be submitted for recycling as it is not very functional anymore. We do not have the original install disc and do not want to spend the money to buy one. Online I've found ways to do it through the Disk Utility feature; however when I go to the "Erase" tab all of the options I want to choose are grayed and it won't let me erase at all. Anyone have any ideas on what is going on here? We are using the administrator log-in so there are no restrictions if that is relevant here. I'm pretty much at a loss as to what to do here and want to get this thing cleaned up and out of our house. Thanks for any help you can provide!
Abby
The only way to erase a boot disc is to boot from some other media (you cannot wipe or erase the active boot drive). Can you connect it by firewire to another Mac in target disc mode? You could do that and wipe it. Or boot it from an external drive and then wipe the internal disc.
Alternatively, create a new admin account and log in to it. Then delete any and all previous user and admin accounts. Then wipe the free space. Should leave nothing but the new admin account and base OS directories.
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Any ideas of why this is happening?Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
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Do you have any of the original or retail OS X 10.5.x installation disks? If not why not manually discard to trash all the unwanted stuff.
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So.. I know there's a few of these threads around, but I can't find one that answers my problem directly...
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Samhttp://www.macworld.com/2001/10/bc/howtoimac/
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How can I install OSX lion on my completely wiped mac mini?
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Thanks!DopeyBovineMan wrote:
That just isn't practical for me, to be booting off an external.
Would a flash drive work, or something to that effect?
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I click on restore and select the json file, it warns me it'll replace all of my current bookmarks with the backup... i click ok, and nothing happens.
for anyone else reading the Folder and Search is under the View to the far right to you have to click on Options to see it
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Can't fully restore my Time Machine/Time Capsule Backup to my newly-wiped SSD/HDD
On receiving my leased, Bootcamp-enabled MacBook Pro, I saw that there were no installation discs for Windows or OSX, and that there were 2 partitions (or so I thought) for Mac and Windows: 375GB each. As I produce music using software in both OSs, I wanted to create a 185GB FAT-32 partition to store my sound samples, projects etc. I attempted to create this partition by resizing (halving) my Bootcamp partition in OSX Disc Utility. The first time I attempted it, resizing was possible, but after the new partition was created, I had problems booting and so had to edit my GPT in order to boot again. Once ‘fixed,’ (by deleting the new partition) I couldn’t resize the Bootcamp partition to fill the 185GB gap, and that 185GB was ‘lost.’ The Bootcamp partition was 375GB but its used space + free space added up to 190GB
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Use Windows Backup (and/or Clonezilla, or Disk Utility) to store an image of my Windows partition.
Uninstall/wipe the Windows partition using BootCamp Assistant, creating 1 big OSX partition
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Restore the image/backups (approx 70GB) and carry on as before.
During the process, I deemed that this wasn't possible on my system for a variety of reasons: My laptop already had 4 partitions (Windows Recovery, Bootcamp/Windows, Mac Recovery HD, and Mac) and my understanding is that the MBR of my SSD only supports 4 partitions in its Bootcamp + OSX-compatible state. I have never got this '5 partition' strategy working.
I was unable to restore my Windows partition after re-installing Windows via Bootcamp. As a solution, I then decided to wipe the OSX partition (at that point the only 'visible' partition on the disk) and in-place re-install Mac OS X, with a view to installing Windows after OSX.
Once I wiped my hard drive, however, restoring my files and settings, didn't work as expected. Time Machine backups etc were inaccessible after a normal re-install. Re-installing with file transfer at setup froze at the 10% mark, with an estimated 200 hrs to go. The option to try a full-system restore via Time Machine is greyed-out. Even the Migration Assistant failed at a similar point. On the occasions where it claimed to complete successful (most recent situation) it seemed to neglect files, etc., and I'm now stuck at this stage.
I can view files/backups in Time Machine but I can't completely restore my computer to the state it was on 18th May...and 11 days without a fully-functioning laptop is really annoying. I wasn't able to ‘clean’ *or* ‘in-place’ re-install OSX using my existing settings and so I'm frustrated that Time Machine isn't a flawless backup & restore process. Migration Assistant didn’t transfer everything. Can I get things back to the way they were?
Things that haven’t restored correctly:
None of my icon customisations at the top of the screen were there (DropBox, Evernote, Google Drive, Kuvva, the way battery icon was displayed
Safari: Top Sites, History, Plugins
Logic Pro: Downloaded sounds, presets (10+GB), recent items, plugin settings/AU manager
Mail: Settings (and I’m assuming, the downloaded/cached mail: 7GB)
Trash can: Empty
All recent item lists apart from cloud-based services like Evernote, Notes, contacts
iTunes library
Dock view and settings
Settings for most programs
And I'm sure there are more!Thanks Pondini; I'd hoped you'd reply. I'm still getting used to this tech, no can't even quote here.
Pondini wrote:
AkaraE wrote:
Time Machine backups etc were inaccessible after a normal re-install.
If you mean you installed OSX and created a user account, then couldn't find the backups, that's because they're treated as being from a different disk, until you either transfer your data or do a manual "associatedisk". See the blue box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #19 for details.
Yet to try the associatedisk...didn't realise this was possible until reading your guides. The explanation makes sense now. On installing OSX it said transfers were possible after installation, so I put off transferring as the first 'restore' had frozen on 10%, thinking I'd do it afterwards.
Re-installing with file transfer at setup froze at the 10% mark, with an estimated 200 hrs to go
That sounds like damaged/corrupted backups. Try to Repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Yet to try...didn't realise this was possible until reading your guides
The option to try a full-system restore via Time Machine is greyed-out.
You mean, on the Mac OS X Utilities menu on the Recovery HD? I've never heard of that. That should always be selectable, so you can specify where the backups you want are located. Nothing happens when you click it? Can you click the other options there?
Even the Migration Assistant failed at a similar point. On the occasions where it claimed to complete successful (most recent situation) it seemed to neglect files, etc., and I'm now stuck at this stage.
Also sounds like directory or file problems on the backups.
This is just when I go into Time Machine/Star Wars. I can't just go to the latest backup and click "Restore" (which I assume would just restore my whole computer/HDD, although I have no experience in this). I can only select files and restore them individually.
Time Machine isn't a flawless backup & restore process.
There has never been any such thing.
I bought into the Time Machine 'hype' and thought it was an easy and reliable tool, but was a lot more difficult to do a full restore than I thought.
Trash can: Empty
Correct. Time Machine (like most backup apps) don't back up trash.
All the rest should have been backed-up and restored. Do you see them in the backups? What, if anything, was excluded from being backed-up?
As a non-native Mac user, I'm not sure where all these things are stored...perhaps in Library? I think that not having the full hard-drive just restore annoyed me...I felt that backing up my whole hard drive every hour should've allowed me to restore everything to as it was without a hitch, and when it didn't work I just tried a few things before posting on here.
If repairing the backups finds and fixes things, you might want to try again.
Gonna try now
If not, and if you can see the missing items via the Time Machine browser (the "Star Wars" display), you should be able to restore them selectively. -
Problems with Mac OSX 10.5.2 and installing my pro tools le 7.1.1
Problems with Mac OSX 10.5.2 and installing my pro tools le 7.1.1.
My garage band & reason software don´t open anymore giving me a error messasge regarding the midi drivers in the operating system.
Please help!!!
Thanks,
PaoloSomewhere at either Macworld or here I learned that DVDSP 2, DVDSP 3 and now DVDSP 4 "internally" are major re-writes.
Support for HD among a few other items along with QT 7 which comes with Tiger means sincerely that one set of applications/OS is not going to be stable.
Personally I think of all the issues possible its DVDSP vs QT.
Unless you move to DVDSP v4 the alternative is to wipe the disk and go back to Jaguar (10.2) or perhaps Panther but avoid upgrading QT beyond 6. I advocate wiping the disk because I'n not sure an archive and install to down shift to an earlier version of the OS is possible. If it is I'd still worry about mis-matched files in all sorts of locations. -
Mostly explained in the title. My dad gave me his MacBook, and I went ahead and wiped all of his stuff by using the recovery partition to wipe/reinstall OSX Lion. In the setup I used a new apple ID and now I can't get iLife apps. I'm relatively new to how apple works its purchases, so I'm not sure what's up. Is it that my computer has a unique ID set to the first apple ID used on it, and if so, how can I get this reset to my ID? I'm planning to get an iPhone 5 soon so I'd like to be able to use photo stream with iPhoto and try out Guitar Band.
Any help is much appreciated.
-Tom
PS: I couldn't find a correct catagory, so I hope this is close enough. If not please tell me where I should be posting this.Contact the App store for Apple ID help. Their support link is on the right of the App store window
LN
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