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User profile for user: WoodyWW
WoodyWW Author
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Trying to wipe the hard drive on a G5 iMac, using an external DVD drive as the one in the iMac is broken.

I'm trying to boot up with the OS (or install) disk, from an external DVD drive as the one in the iMac is broken. When the computer boots up, my normal desktop appears, but also the Mac OSX (Tiger) install disk. When I double-click on the "Install Mac OSX" icon, a screen comes up that says: "Click the button below to restart & begin the install process". The iMac restarts, but just goes back to where it was, & I'm prompted to: "Click the button below to restart & begin the install process".


So far there is no way to "begin the install process", I just keep going around in circles with this. I'm doing this so I can sell the computer. I hope I've made it clear, and TIA for any advice.

iMac, iOS 4.2

Posted on Feb 11, 2013 10:02 AM

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User profile for user: mende1
mende1
User level: Level 10
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Posted on Feb 11, 2013 10:06 AM

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities


That's not the correct way to reinstall Mac OS X if you want to wipe the hard disk. Follow these steps:


1. With the Mac OS X DVD inside, press the C key while your Mac is starting to start into the Tiger disc.


2. When the DVD has started, go to Utilities menu > Disk Utility, select Macintosh HD on the sidebar, go to Erase tab and erase the disk.


3. Close Disk Utility and install Mac OS X. When the installation finishes, turn off the computer

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User profile for user: mende1
mende1
User level: Level 10
93,538 points

Feb 11, 2013 10:06 AM in response to WoodyWW

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities


That's not the correct way to reinstall Mac OS X if you want to wipe the hard disk. Follow these steps:


1. With the Mac OS X DVD inside, press the C key while your Mac is starting to start into the Tiger disc.


2. When the DVD has started, go to Utilities menu > Disk Utility, select Macintosh HD on the sidebar, go to Erase tab and erase the disk.


3. Close Disk Utility and install Mac OS X. When the installation finishes, turn off the computer

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User profile for user: WoodyWW
WoodyWW Author
User level: Level 1
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Feb 13, 2013 10:36 AM in response to mende1

Yes, I realized 1/2 way thru that "erase free space" means exactly that (duh). So now that I've erased the free space, I still wanted to wipe rest of the hard drive. Only now, when I go into the disk utility erase option, there is nothing to click on, no options, as shown by rccharles, no way to erase anything further.


So I've erased the free space, but can't erase the rest. Maybe I should have picked "zero out data", but I can't do that now. Also, now the disk utility icon has a pic of a mouse (?) next to it.


I think the 7 y.o. G5 is just failing in some ways (ya think?)........

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User profile for user: WoodyWW
WoodyWW Author
User level: Level 1
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Feb 20, 2013 8:42 AM in response to rccharles

rccharles, thanks, but I can't partition the HD either. Where your graphic shows the diff. options that you can select for Volume Format:


On mine, when I click on either erase, or partition, then Format, or Volume Format, below, is "grayed out". And the blue part at the end is not there either, except maybe in gray. IOW, there's no way to click on anything anymore, to erase, or partition.


I hope I'm explaining it well. Does anyone else think the HD is failing in some way? It sure seems like it.....

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Trying to wipe the hard drive on a G5 iMac, using an external DVD drive as the one in the iMac is broken.

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