MAC Reformat
- Started
- Last post
- 11 Responses
- radar
I was going to do a complete OS reinstall to wipe a MAC I just got clean. A friend suggested just going to the disk utitlty & erasing the hard drive.
Will that clear all the crap from a studio machine or should I do the reinstall?
- acescence0
how would you erase a drive without reinstalling?
- Daro0
I bought a used iBook laptop and I reinstallled the complete OS. I had to reinstall all the programs as well but it took all the junk out.
I'm sure how the disk utility works so I can't really give you an opinion on that.
- menos0
If you want a clean 'new' machine, i'd suggest doing a clean install and set the option to erase and instal (or something like it, wrong wording) and follow through. you can do this by starting up from the cd and following the instructions. also, this way you can choose to only instal what you want and save lots of space. Eg. instead of 11gb of mac apps and language/printer drivers, you can install the os and only 'waste' 3gb.
- radar0
Thats what I figured, thanks guys.
Is a reformatting a Mac like a PC where you just reboot the machine with the OS install disk in the CD rom drive?
- eb60
Yeah, its really simple.
- eb60
"It just works"
- radar0
nice, thanks.
- menos0
simple but dont forget to format it under mac os extended journaled...if youre unsure.
- ribit0
and if you want it REALLY clean, use the 'security wipe' option in Disk utility when formatting the drive, to have it write 1's and 0's over the whole disk... otherwise all the stuff from the person you bought it from can still be found by MI5.
- eb60
and if you want it REALLY clean, use the 'security wipe' option in Disk utility when formatting the drive, to have it write 1's and 0's over the whole disk... otherwise all the stuff from the person you bought it from can still be found by MI5.
ribit
(Sep 25 07, 12:03)Be advised, that takes a very very long time. Unless you are a spy or hitman, I'd skip it.
- radar0
yeah looks like extended is the way too go - thanks, guys.