How can I totally wipe my Mac mini hard drive? (including the recovery partition?)

[Winter Charm]

Okay, so I created a Mountain Lion bootable USB and everything went well, until I got an Install Failed Error telling me a recovery partition could not be created which directed me to visit this URL:

support.apple.com/kb/HT4649

Which is a support page for Lion. But I know the issue was a "nonstandard" bootcamp partition.

I erased that, and tried again, and got an error once again. :/

I think it has to do with the existing recovery partition on the internal hard drive in my mac mini... how can I totally erase my mac mini hard drive? Help please! :O

 

[Auzburner]

Have you removed every partition visible in disk utility on the hard drive?

 

[Winter Charm]

Have you removed every partition visible in disk utility on the hard drive?

Yes (using the disk utility on the USB drive). And when I try to use the alt/option boot up, the only thing showing up is my USB drive.

Edit: clarification.

 

[jcampbell1070]

if your mac mini came with a snow leopard install dvd , use the disk utility on it to wipe
the drive. thats what i do and it will erase the recovery partition.