How to remove partitions

If you do not have a problem with completely erasing the drive to create that one partition, it is easy.

Startup from the Tiger installation disc as you already have done, and run Disk Utility from the menu bar. Select the internal drive in the sidebar. Be sure you are selecting the DRIVE, not the volume indented under the drive. Click on the Partition tab. Reset the +Volume Scheme+ to *1 Partition*. Name the partition (the usual name is +Macintosh HD+ ), set the format type to +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+, and click the Apply button.

Once the internal drive is re-partition and formatted, quit Disk Utility to go back to Installer. Proceed with a standard installation of the OS and bundled apps on the now blank volume.

If you need to preserve the existing data, please post back.

We need to keep the terms straight here to avoid confusion. 🙂 The sidebar in Disk Utility shows all the drives (sometimes referred to as devices ). The DVD drive would appear there too. Indented under each drive are the volumes on that drive. A volume is the same as a partition. So, if there are two partitions on the drive, there should be two volumes indented under the drive. If you see only one volume currently, the there is only on partition on that drive.

Note: You can install Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X on the same volume. That is the default setup for Macs sold during the transition between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, when both came pre-installed.

If you have everything backed up already, you may want to re-partition the drive, even if it already has only one partition. As the warning indicated, the current volume will be erased.

You can then run Installer for Tiger and install the OS plus bundled apps. Since you just repartitioned and reformatted the drive, you will not have to worry about any existing disk data errors. And you won't have to worry about any problems with the existing system. After you have installed Tiger and restarted from the new installation, you can migrate your data from your backup.