Erasing a HD on a mac mini and re-installing the OS and migrating all data on my macbook pro.

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Level 1

10 points

Erasing a HD on a mac mini and re-installing the OS and migrating all data on my macbook pro.

My macmini is acting really screwy and i want to wipe the drive clean and migrate the data and apps that i have on this computer which is a 2010 macbook pro. How do i accomplish this? I have tried using migration assistant a number of times using USB cable, wi-fi, and ethernet and in each case it stalled and had to end the process. very frustrating to say the least. So i figured i could just erase the macmini HD and start fresh, including re-installing the OS 10.8.4 But i cant figure out how to do it. I need step by step instructions. Thanks for your time as i really appreciate the help!

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Sep 4, 2013 2:46 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Sep 4, 2013 2:51 PM in response to stogie002

Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch

Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Erase the hard drive:

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.

2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the

left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on

the Security button and set the ZeroData option to one-pass. Click on

the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.

Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.

Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible

because it is three times faster than wireless.

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