HELP Reformatting

moloko23

moloko23

Registered
Hello everyone,
This is my first post and some might find this question a little ignorant but here goes:
I have a Powermac G4 Quicksilver running Mac OS 10.3.9 Panther.
I need to be able to update my Java JRE and so I've decided to update the OS to 10.4 Tiger. I would like to reformat my built-in HD where the current OS is running while I'm at it but have never done it before. I don't want to do something wrong and am looking for some step by step help in this subject.
I have the CD version of Tiger since I haven't got a DVD drive on my 4 to 5 year old PC. Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Greetings,
Moloko23
 
Put the first Tiger disc in and restart holding the C key down. You'll get the Language screen, choose your language, go to the next screen, then up to the Utility Menu to Disk Utility. Use that to reformat the drive. Then go ahead with the Tiger Installer.
 
this is probably a really stupid question but can you reformate without any cds or anything, i just want to clean up my laptop it sometimes doing funky stuff
 
^No I'm quite sure you can't reformat your built-in HD thats running your OS without burning the disk image to a CD or DVD.


I found out what the problem was, I just changed the "start up disk" in system preferences to the Mac OS CD and then rebooted and it worked :D
Thanks for the help
 
this is probably a really stupid question but can you reformate without any cds or anything, i just want to clean up my laptop it sometimes doing funky stuff
Click to expand...

Yes you can. If you can boot off another drive, you can use Disk Utility to format the drive.
 
bobw said:
Yes you can. If you can boot off another drive, you can use Disk Utility to format the drive.
Click to expand...
Do you have to have OS installed on the other drive you boot off of?
 
Would the same be true for re-installing OS 10.2.8? That's what's with my G4.

There's loads of crap on my HD. I'm afraid that simply selecting (for example) "Kodak DCS Photodesk" from the Applications folder and moving it to the Trash won't fully erase the software.

Can you do this with a Mac, or am I just too used to Windoze?
 
If you fully want to erase everything on the HD I would use disk utility but you can also just use "Secure Erase Trash" but depending on the amount of data being erased it can take up to several hours. Some application files installed can sometimes be difficult to erase so if I were you I would just backup what you still need on another drive and then write zeros to the drive that's cluttered.
 
moloko23 said:
Do you have to have OS installed on the other drive you boot off of?
Click to expand...
You must have an OS installed on any drive you boot from (hard drive, CD/DVD, network drive, etc.). You cannot boot from a drive that does not have an operating system installed.
 
^so could I have windows installed on the one drive and Mac OS on the other and just switch the boot drive and run Windows (not that I would want to)
 
moloko23 said:
^so could I have windows installed on the one drive and Mac OS on the other and just switch the boot drive and run Windows (not that I would want to)
Click to expand...
Sure, if you had a computer that will run both Mac OS X and Windows (which you don't -- no one does... yet).
 
moloko23 said:
Emulators are the only way so far huh?
Click to expand...
Well, when the Intel-based Macs come out, there's hope that they'll natively run Windows as well as Mac OS X... so far, it looks like this is the case (though you're on your own -- Apple won't support or condone it, so drivers and the like are up to you).

Right now, Macintosh computers are PowerPC-based... this is incompatible with the processors that Windows is compiled for.
 
moloko23 said:
If you fully want to erase everything on the HD I would use disk utility but you can also just use "Secure Erase Trash" but depending on the amount of data being erased it can take up to several hours. Some application files installed can sometimes be difficult to erase so if I were you I would just backup what you still need on another drive and then write zeros to the drive that's cluttered.
Click to expand...

Ummm, forgive me for being Tim Nice But Dim... but what does "writing zeros" to the drive mean?
 
Tinpusher said:
Ummm, forgive me for being Tim Nice But Dim... but what does "writing zeros" to the drive mean?
Click to expand...
Its when you overwrite all your data on a HD (so all the zeros and ones) with zeros, in other words, clean out your HD and make it nice and fresh.
 
ya for some reason it wont allow me to ereaas or do anything on disk utility. the only thing i can do is ask pernission
 
imidiot said:
ya for some reason it wont allow me to ereaas or do anything on disk utility. the only thing i can do is ask pernission
Click to expand...

It depends on which disk your booting from, you obviously can't format the disk your OS is booting from. Or are you trying to format a secondary or internal/external HD?
 
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