Reformat my whole MacBook Pro and start again with 1 Mac partition?

[Noted]

Hey

At the moment I have 2 partitions. Mac OSX and Windows Vista. Ive decided I want to reformat the whole thing so I have 1 mac partition and can start the Boot Camp process again.

How do I do this. I want to reformat so it goes back to the "out-of-the-box" status.

 

[regre7]

I've never done this, so wait for another opinion, but I think there's an option on the OS X install disk for "Erase and Install". I'm not sure if that'll remove the partitions, though.

 

[Noted]

Hmm thanks for that but I think that just deals with the Mac partition..

anyone else?

 

[Electro Funk]

BEFORE you reformat, delete the vista partition with bootcamp...

it is quick and painless....

then reformat the drive....

if you reformat before it will leave the vista partition untouched....

 

[Noted]

I cant open Boot Camp.. it says:

"Your startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.

Back up your startup disk and use Disk Utility to format your startup disk as a single Mac OS Extendted (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the startup disk and try using Boot Camp assistant again."

What do I do?

 

[JosiahPB]

That would be horrible if you had to have your hard drive partitioned for eternity...I'm sure there is someway that someone smarter than me will be able to tell you about.

 

[benthewraith]

Hey

At the moment I have 2 partitions. Mac OSX and Windows Vista. Ive decided I want to reformat the whole thing so I have 1 mac partition and can start the Boot Camp process again.

How do I do this. I want to reformat so it goes back to the "out-of-the-box" status.

Did you format it NTFS? If so, Mac won't be able to delete. You would need to format it into FAT32. Though Boot Camp should be able to delete NTFS, I've done it before....:S

 

[Noted]

The problem is my Boot Camp won't open though (see above)

 

[61132]

ok, I went through the same situation, this is what I had to do, although i know there are ways to return the disk to normal without reinstalling os x, but they are really involved.

BACK UP ALL OF YOUR DATA AND APPS!!!!!!!!!!!!


Insert OS X install DVD 1, when window shows up, click the "install os x" or something like that, it will ask you to restart and will ask for your password.

Once you have restarted, the computer will boot from the install cd. Select, I believe "utilities" in the menu bar, then disk utility.

Find your disk, then select the "hardware disk" (its the parent to your osx and windows partitions)

Click erase in the right panel, make the name "Macintosh HD" or whatever you want.

After it has erased it, install os x as normal, then install bootcamp, then install windows

If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them, I know some of the above may be vague, but I am saying this all from memory, even though I did it two days ago on my MBP

 

[Noted]

ok, I went through the same situation, this is what I had to do, although i know there are ways to return the disk to normal without reinstalling os x, but they are really involved.

BACK UP ALL OF YOUR DATA AND APPS!!!!!!!!!!!!


Insert OS X install DVD 1, when window shows up, click the "install os x" or something like that, it will ask you to restart and will ask for your password.

Once you have restarted, the computer will boot from the install cd. Select, I believe "utilities" in the menu bar, then disk utility.

Find your disk, then select the "hardware disk" (its the parent to your osx and windows partitions)

Click erase in the right panel, make the name "Macintosh HD" or whatever you want.

After it has erased it, install os x as normal, then install bootcamp, then install windows

If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them, I know some of the above may be vague, but I am saying this all from memory, even though I did it two days ago on my MBP

Thanks a lot .. that worked perfectly

 

[steve_hill4]

Thanks a lot .. that worked perfectly

That's the way I did it on an iMac I tried it on. Apple rep then told me Boot Camp would have done it. Apparently not reading here.