iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) Trouble Installing New Operating System

[DCBUS]

Hello,

I am trying to install a new copy of the system files. Everything seems to be grayed out, plus when I get to the screen asking where to install, there is no hard drive showing. But, as the image below shows, I can see the WDC drive in the system info. But when I try and goto Disk Utilities, everything is gray. I can not process any of the utility commands. Is there a way to star fresh and erase all without the Disk Utility command.

Thank you JR

All I can get to in the process is below,

To This

Nothing Past This, No Drive Shown

Thank you

 

[Bigwaff]

Can you boot from the install DVD? Seems you may have booted from the internal storage. You can’t erase the disk the OS is running off of.

 

[DeltaMac]

It also looks like you have restored the installer DVD to the WDC hard drive.
So, you can boot from the internal drive (which is the OS X installer, only taking about 8GB space), OR you can boot from the DVD, which is the same installer.
SO, if you want to erase the internal drive, you need to boot from the DVD, not from the internal drive.
Restart, holding your Option key (will show the boot disk picker screen.) Eject the DVD so that is NOT showing as a choice for booting. NOW, insert the DVD. When that appears on the screen as a boot choice, select it, then contine with booting to that installer DVD. and NOW, you will be able to erase the internal drive, and continue on with a proper erase and install of Snow Leopard on the internal drive.
That should do the trick!

 

[DCBUS]

Thank you for the advice. I will try it later tonight.

 

[DCBUS]

Hello DeltaMac,

Your process worked great, thank you very much,

JR