Disk utility options greyed out - attempting volume erase

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Disk utility options greyed out - attempting volume erase

Hello-

(I promise you I have tried to find this answer myself through an extensive search through these forums...nada.)

I am attempting to zero out my hard drive and so I booted off of the "Mac OS X Installation" disk, ran disk utility and chose the hard drive in the left-hand partition of the screen. Unfortunately, the "volume format,""name," "security options," and "erase disk" are all greyed out. "Erase free space" is not.

I'd appreciate any direction you can give me....thank you.

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) newbie

Posted on Dec 17, 2006 11:00 AM

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Answer 1

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Kappy

Level 10

361,731 points

Dec 17, 2006 11:36 AM in response to bethel

Do this:

Extended Hard Drive Preparation

1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disk. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.)

2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.

3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.

4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.

6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.

If you plan to reinstall OS X, then when the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed to install OS X.

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