You will need an external USB drive and the original OS X Installer Discs that come with the computer.
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the
Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After ** loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in **'s status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing.
SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the
Partition tab in the ** main window.
3. Click on the
Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the
OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the
Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the
Erase tab in the ** main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the
Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on
OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the
Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.
After formatting is completed quit ** and return to the installer where you can complete the OS X installation.
