how can I force delete all partitions?

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Level 1

8 points

how can I force delete all partitions?

I have multiple bootcamp partitions that cannot be deleted. I have tried to delete them in disk utility but that did not work, then I tried to delete them through the mountain Lion recovery center. (Hold down "alt" on bootup and click the recovery partition) but the same "partition failed, unrecognized file system" message came up! I want the full hardd rive capacity to simply go back to Macintosh HD. I don't need to save any data on any of the partitions as I backed it all up in anticipation of having to wipe the drive clean. I have not even figured out how to wipe it clean yet.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on May 28, 2013 1:03 PM

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Answer 1

ds store

Level 7

30,855 points

May 28, 2013 1:42 PM in response to Yobym

Reboot holding Command Option r keys on Internet, Internet Recovery loads.

In that Disk Utiltiy you can erase the ENTIRE drive of everything, which you need to do to reinstall the OS X version that came with the machine and upgrade to the one you had last, else use the 10.6 disks and start from there.

How to reformat a used Mac

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Answer 2

mende1

Level 10

93,618 points

May 28, 2013 1:07 PM in response to Yobym

Welcome to Apple Support Communities

Have you tried to use Boot Camp Assistant to remove the Boot Camp volume? It's the only official way to do it, and if you don't delete your Boot Camp volumes using it, you might have problems.

If you can't use Boot Camp Assistant, another option is to use a partitioning bootable application like GParted > http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ . Just burn it into a CD, start your computer holding the C key and delete the partitions you don't want. Finally, start in OS X and use Disk Utility to add the storage to your OS X volume

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Answer 3

Yobym Author

Level 1

8 points

May 28, 2013 3:15 PM in response to ds store

Thanks! This was EXACTLY what I was looking for!

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