trying to format iMAC 8,1 without recovery disk

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trying to format iMAC 8,1 without recovery disk

Hi! I hope someone can give me some advice. I have a late 2007 iMac, which I'd like to give away. I would like to format the disk, but I do not have a recovery disk and cannot boot into recovery mode and go into disk utility from there to erase the disk. The snow leopard dvds that came with iMac are scratched up, I do however have a bootable usb flash drive. From what I understand there may not be a partition, and the recovery disk assistant app runs only with lion or later.

is my best option really to upgrade to lion to create a recovery disk and then erase the disk from there? What else can I do? Command R does not work and I can only boot from either usb or CD/DVD, but I do only have usb of snow leopard right now. Any help would be appreciated, I've already spent two nights on this and I'm feeling pretty frustrated.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Mar 11, 2016 1:46 AM

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Answer 1

SeaPapp

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Mar 11, 2016 3:15 AM in response to mnhpdx

The Snow Leopard USB should have Disk Utility on it. Boot from that and erase the hard drive, then provide that usb to the new owner. What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

mnhpdx Author

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Mar 11, 2016 9:43 AM in response to SeaPapp

Hello Mike, thank you for your reply. would the option of going into disk utility from the usb installation come up on a screen? I hold down "option" after chime and am given the choice to boot from my disk or usb. when I choose usb it takes me to an installation screen that just reinstalls osx and kept all my files. No options as far as I can see.

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Answer 3

SeaPapp

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26,492 points

Mar 11, 2016 11:22 AM in response to mnhpdx

There should be a menu bar at the top, in the Utilities menu is Disk Utility. After you've erased the drive you can quit DU and return to the installer screen.

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Answer 4

mnhpdx Author

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Mar 11, 2016 11:50 AM in response to mnhpdx

LLike I said there's no option to go into utilities.

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Answer 5

SeaPapp

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Mar 11, 2016 3:20 PM in response to mnhpdx

It's been a long time since I've installed Snow Leopard but it looks like you're going too far. When you select your usb in the boot manager at the next screen you should select your language, the next screen is the installer screen, instead of choosing install OS X you should be able to choose the Utilities menu and select Disk Utility. If it's not there then you're going to have to purchase a retail Snow Leopard disc from Apple http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

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Answer 6

mnhpdx Author

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Mar 11, 2016 3:21 PM in response to SeaPapp

Thank you, I didn't look around much on the screen. This really helped me and I appreciate the time you took to do that.

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Answer 7

SeaPapp

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Mar 11, 2016 6:25 PM in response to mnhpdx

You're welcome!

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Answer 8

mnhpdx Author

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Mar 11, 2016 8:03 PM in response to SeaPapp

Sorry, I have one more question, I have clean install of snow leopard on it now, I have 4gb on it with an intel core 2 duo. if i want to get it upgraded to el capitan, do i have to move through all the previous releases?

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Answer 9

mnhpdx Author

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Mar 11, 2016 8:24 PM in response to mnhpdx

never mind I figured it out.

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