Disk Utility - Erase Hard Drive???

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Level 1

59 points

Disk Utility - Erase Hard Drive???

Hello,

I have been having trouble with my Mac's internal hard drive.

I cannot get it seen to for a couple of months, so I performed a couple of erase and reinstalls of Leopard with lasted a couple of days and I have been working off an external boot drive.

I have received my free copy of Snow Leopard so I thought I install that on the Mac and see if it makes a difference.

I am about to do the erase and I have a question - in Disk Utiluty the previous two times I selected the "Macintosh HD" and erased what was in that.

Above that it says "232.9 GB WDC WD2500J...".

Is that what I should be erasing or should I not touch it?

Regards

Posted on Apr 29, 2012 10:34 AM

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Answer 1

NeddySeagoon Author

Level 1

59 points

Apr 29, 2012 10:42 AM in response to NeddySeagoon

Have I nit actually been erasing the hard drive at all?

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

239,435 points

Apr 29, 2012 1:35 PM in response to NeddySeagoon

Well, funny thing is that Erasing doesn't really mean Erasing, that just rewrites the Directory structure, which is a very small part of the disk.

First, in Disk Utility, highlight the whole drive & look below to see if it says...

S.M.A.R.T. Status : Verified

If it does say that...

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.

2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)

*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*

3. Click the Erase tab.

4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.

5. Select your Mac OS X volume.

6. Highlight the drive, select Partition Tab, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journalled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... after completion do a new install.

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