You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Mac OS X Panther Re-Install

I am selling my iMac G4 tomorrow and need to give it a clean sweep before I sell it. From what I understand, the best way to do this is to back up all info from the system drive (which I have), run disk utility and erase everything (not done yet), then reinstall the OS again. Well, I wanted to test the install disc before I just erased everything, so I clicked on the "Install Mac OS X" icon, and it asked me to restart my iMac to begin the process. Booted back up, nothing. So I tried the same thing again, this time holding down the C key. Nothing. Is there a reason why this could be happening? Or is there a way to wipe my drive clean but keep the OS on there?

PS - Sorry, I just realized I posted this in G5 instead of G4!

iMac G4, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Jun 10, 2006 4:27 AM

17 replies

Jun 10, 2006 1:52 PM in response to Michael Clark12

I have no re-installed OS X back onto the system. Thank you a million times. Now my only problem lies in the fact that I need to erase the drive, or at the very least, get rid of it's partitioning. Is there another way to do this other than Disk Utility? Disk Utility is not giving me the option to do this. All the options are grey and cannot be chosen.

DPSG-Scout

Level 4

1,138 points

Jun 10, 2006 3:03 PM in response to Michael Clark12

How did you reinstall OS X? Did you burn an installation disk?

You should have merged both partitions and erased your drive prior to reinstalling OS X.

Boot from your OS X CD, open Disk Utility from the menu bar, merge and format the entire drive, not just a single partition. Choose to zero your data. This will finally erase your entire drive.

Reinstall OS X afterwards (you might have to reboot from your installation disk, not sure whether there is a menu item to reopen the installer).

Mac OS X Panther Re-Install