Removing/merging partitions in Lion
I recently partitioned my internal HDD to install Linux using Bootcamp. Worked like a charm. But I have about 6 partitions on my HDD! I have no idea how that happened and I can't figure out how to remove or merge them back to my "Macintosh HD". It says everytime time it needs to be HFS+ format. I erased all the partitions and formatted them to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Isn't that HFS+? If so, why is Disk Utility telling me it's not, and if not, how do I get it to that format? Can anybody help me and tell me how to erase all these partitions and just get it back to one 500 GB HDD?
FYI - I have a new, 2011 21.5" iMac and yes I do have full Time Machine backups of my system.