How to delete Time Machine partition

... I have three partitions on my hard drive ...

And when that hard drive fails, you have absolutely nothing.

Please consider an external backup drive dedicated to Time Machine. Quality ext drives are as inexpensive as ever. Get one that is 2X - to - 3X the size of your main hard drive.

Better yet, I additionally dedicate a second external hard drive to a complete, bootable backup every week - because Time Machine does not create a bootable backup.

Sorry to spend your money for you ... but your routine right now isn't protecting you at all from hard drive failure.

How are you trying to "delete Time Machine"?

If you mean delete it's partition, Disk Utility should do that easily, but I doubt that's the reason your Mac won't boot.

And whether you can "merge" the partitions depends on where they are.

I assume you're booting from your Leopard Install disc, and using it's copy of DU? If so, select your internal HD (top line) and click the Partition tab. You can delete any partition by selecting it (DU will outline it in blue), then click the minus sign at the bottom.

You can then drag the resize handle (lower right corner) of the partition above the removed one down to fill some or all of the now-vacant space. But you can't drag a lower one up.

Percefona wrote:
Great - this is what I needed - might be simple for most people but I am beginner with MAC.

Now one more question - can I also delete the Mac OS partition from here and then install Mac OS on the new "merged" partition again? This in no way will damage my windows partition, right?

You don't need to delete it; just Erase it (with DU), then expand it into the empty space.

And no, as long as you don't touch your Windoze partition, it will be ok.

Your only problem will be if your partitions are arranged with the Windoze partition in the middle, listed in this order when you click the Partition tab:

Macintosh HD (OSX partition)
Windoze partition
Time Machine partition

or the reverse:

Time Machine
Windoze
OSX

In those cases, you cannot merge your OSX and TM partitions.

Percefona wrote:
they were in the order:
Apple
TM
Untitled

After I deleted TM it ws merged with Untitled

I don't think so. When you delete, a partition, it just leaves an empty space in the partition diagram. Pull down the bottom of the Apple partition to fill the empty space.

So if I just erase Apple - I should be able to install Mac OS on it?

You don't have to erase it with DU, but it won't hurt, and won't take long, unless you overwrite it with zeros, which isn't necessary. If you do an Erase and Install from your Leopard Disc, it will be erased automatically.

In Windows i don't delete it - it's deleted during the formatting, so from what I understand in MAC the process is: Erase data; reboot; run installer - specify the disk with the erased data and install OS on it?

You don't have to reboot from your Leopard disc if you're already using DU on it. Just exit back to the screen where you selected Utilities and proceed to install from there. You'll get a place to select where you want to install it.