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How to Format and Clean Install on MBP

1

10-Dee-Q

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 10, 2006
511
32
Bandung, West Java, Indonesia & Singapore
hi , ijust bought MBP, and this is my first mac ever,
the experience has been great so far , but i screwed up the lappy alittle bit, thus i need to fully format it and clean install to start from a fresh again, being regular window user, i really have no idea how to do that in mac, acan anyone here give me a clue ?
thx.
 
10-Dee-Q said:
i mean if in WIn XP machice u'll get cleaner install if u low formatthe HDD from dos prompt than just put the win XP cD and tell it to format .
Click to expand...
As long as the drive is formatted before you install, XP isn't going to be any different on a machine that you did a "low level format" on vs a regular format.

Same with OS X. If you know how to do a low-level format in XP you'll have no problem booting from the OS X restore DVD and wiping the drive and reinstalling.
 
10-Dee-Q said:
i mean if in WIn XP machice u'll get cleaner install if u low formatthe HDD from dos prompt than just put the win XP cD and tell it to format .

how about mac OSX ?
Click to expand...
Yeah, the XP installer is very primitive. You're going to get a GUI everytime you boot off of your OS X DVD for a clean installation. Just pop the disc in and hold down 'C' after the boot tone. It'll then boot off of the DVD. You'll get in error and it'll move you to pick Clean install. Just pick "Clean Install" from the Customization options. It'll back to out of the box again.
 
10-Dee-Q said:
hi , ijust bought MBP, and this is my first mac ever,
the experience has been great so far , but i screwed up the lappy alittle bit, thus i need to fully format it and clean install to start from a fresh again, being regular window user, i really have no idea how to do that in mac, acan anyone here give me a clue ?
thx.
Click to expand...

Before you reinstall, you should understand that this is rarely necessary on a Mac. Quite likely this step can be avoided. What did you do, and what are the problems?
 
Depending on what went wrong, you could also just reinstall the operating system without touching your applications and documents. I did this once after my PowerBook screwed up during an update and showed me the Apple equivalent of a BSOD. I had OSX repaired from the installation disk and everything worked fine afterwards - no time consuming reinstalling for any application of mine. Sweet! :cool:
 
thx, anyway i already format the MBP using disk utillity in the installer disk,
but now i/m updating the software, werid thing is last time i did update the SMC updater, but now it doesn;t show on the list,
but my previous install already being erased right, shouldn';t i update the SMS again ?
thx.
 
SMC is a firmware update, so once it's run, it's run regardless what happens to your hard drive.
 
Next time you have a problem, it would be worthwhile for you to post a complete description of it here before doing anything else. Most of the time, you'll be offered suggestions which will permit you to fix it without taking drastic measures like reformatting the drive or reinstalling OSX.
 
hi, got another question here, when i format and re install the mac osx, i put my name wrongly, so now the computer name is wrong,
i already try to change it on the user accounts settting, but still the computer name doesn't change is there any other way beside re installing it again ???
thx.
 
10-Dee-Q said:
hi, got another question here, when i format and re install the mac osx, i put my name wrongly, so now the computer name is wrong,
i already try to change it on the user accounts settting, but still the computer name doesn't change is there any other way beside re installing it again ???
thx.
Click to expand...

Don't reinstall OS X again! I'm pretty sure you can change your full name, but you can't change your user 'short name' - the name used for your home folder, without causing problems.

This is what you do:

1. Create a new user with your name and short user name spelt correctly.
2. Move the contents from your misspelt user's home folder to your correctly spelt user's Drop Box folder. (Make sure you move all the personal files you need!) Or just back up all your documents for later transfer (like on a USB keychain disk)...
3. Delete the misspelt user via User preferences in System Preferences.

There you go! Make sure the new user you created has admin priviliges. This can always be changed, of course, as long as one user is an admin.
 
Hmm... I'm pretty sure I read what you stated correctly.

If, however, you're trying to change the name of the actual computer, you can do so anytime you wish by going into the 'Sharing' pane of the 'System Preferences' panel. The name of the computer is listed at top and can be changed anytime with administrator authentication.
 
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