Disk Utility Erase button is greyed out

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Level 1

1 points

Disk Utility Erase button is greyed out

My iMac 27" (late 2009, core intel i5 model) had its 1TB hard drive replaced early 2012 after it failed SMART, it died. The Apple re-seller repair centre fitted a new drive and loaded a version of Lion and sent me home in that configuration, I then migrated my account across from TM - all okay. When I went to get ML yesterday the App store said you can not make a purchase. After scouring Apple Communities on same subject I tried a few things suggested but did not work. I have everything backed up on TM.

Today I tried to erease the HD so I could re-install Lion from scratch and then hopefully upgrade to ML - now the Disk Utililty erease button is greyed out!- does anyone know how to get around that?

iMac 27, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Aug 11, 2012 8:44 AM

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Answer 1

Niel

Level 10

727,175 points

Aug 11, 2012 8:46 AM in response to BigDag

You need to do it from a Mac OS X install disk or Lion's recovery partition.

(68753)

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Answer 2

Aug 11, 2012 8:47 AM in response to BigDag

How did you try to do the DU erase? Were you on the startup disk? If so that is self-protection, the system will not allow you to erase itself. You have to startup from the recovery hard drive to do the erase...restart holding the Command and R keys...you can then do a clean install of Lion on the hard drive if that is what you want to do.

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Answer 3

BigDag Author

Level 1

1 points

Aug 11, 2012 11:43 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

Thanks Ralph, as the HD was exchanged and pre-loaded with Lion by the repair shop I now notice that there is no recovery partition on the drive when looking at it on disk utility. Also Command-R never works on start up - looks like the HD replacement maybe the problem as it is wrongly installed for OSX. Not sure whether to take Mac back to repair shop and get them to sort this, if any further ideas please let me know.

I have no other start up disk and looks like no recovery partition......

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Answer 4

Aug 11, 2012 12:16 PM in response to BigDag

Disk Utility does not show the Recovery HD even on a properly installed Lion...have you tried a restart holding the Opt key? That should display the normal startup disk and the Recovery HD if there is one...and if there is one you can then click on it to start from it.

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Answer 5

BigDag Author

Level 1

1 points

Aug 17, 2012 2:39 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

Tried Opt key and only one HD, no choice - where do I go from here? Suggests no recovery partition....

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Answer 6

Aug 17, 2012 3:28 AM in response to BigDag

If starting holding the Opt key does not display the normal hard drive and the Recovery HD, then the repair shop did not properly install Lion on the replacement hard drive. You can try restarting holding the Command+R+Opt keys and that should put you in Recovery mode over the internet directly to Apple's servers. This is best done with an ethernet connection to your router, or absent that, you should be using WPA or better security.

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Answer 7

BigDag Author

Level 1

1 points

Aug 20, 2012 8:46 PM in response to Ralph Landry1

Thanks Ralph, I realised when the reseller replaced the broken HD earlier this year that they must have re-installed Lion as a cloned copy, no recovery partition as you correctly say. I have everything backed up on a time capsule. I went to same repair shop yesterday and they admitted THEIR mistake, the solution was to wipe the drive and install Mountain Lion (with recovery partition). I checked partition was definately there using terminal utility (diskutil list) before I left shop. Repair guy was very helpful and let me stay in workshop during re-install.

Everything backed up perfect from time capsule and I am back in business with the upgrade to ML which was how i discovered the original problem.

Moral of the story for me is the poor back up from Apple in an emergency situation, all they state is COMMAND + R, the machine at least could detect there is no recovery partition and tell me to use COMMAND + R + OPT. This fallback is not advertised very well and should be in big lights!

Anyway I am very grateful for the support on the communities and to guys like you Ralph.

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Answer 8

Aug 21, 2012 7:12 AM in response to BigDag

You are welcome,Dog...check out this discussion, https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4147566 the post from Kappy, about making your own backup copy of the installer.

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