Cannot Erase Hard Drive 2008 Mac Pro

Question

Cannot Erase Hard Drive 2008 Mac Pro

I just got a new iMac and am trying to erase my Mac Pro hard drive and install Yosemite so I can sell it. Tried the Command-R but it will not boot to the Recovery partition because apparently I don't have one. I put the original Mavericks Install disc 1 and booted pressing the C key. It took a while and eventually I got a black screen with a message that says I needed to restart the computer. Held down the power button to turn the machine off the tuned it back on. Goes to the very same screen. Restarted holding the Option key. Selected the Install disc. Same screen. Booted again with the Option key, this time selected the MacOX disc. Same problem. I booted while holding the eject key and got the disc out.

Can anyone please help me get to where I can erase and reformat the hard drive?
Thanks

Alan

MacBook Air, macOS High Sierra (10.13.1)

Posted on Dec 17, 2017 11:45 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 19, 2017 8:59 AM in response to English Rebel

To completely erase the drive in that Mac, you need "a place to stand" that is not the boot drive. Internet Recovery is not available in its ROM, so that is off the list.

You said you tried for "regular" Recovery (off the internal drive) but that partition is either clobbered or missing.

Normally, an appropriate Installer DVD would do this job well, but those discs are model-specific, and ONLY the one for that model will do. You could buy the 10.6 DVD from the Apple Online Store (US$20) and use that. it will boot run and install on that model Mac.

Another option would be to make a bootable USB thumb drive.This requires an 8GB or larger thumb drive, and a "Purchased" version of Mac OS showing on your "Purchases" page in the Mac App store, and a fully working MacOS (such as another computer). This would, however, install a version of MacOS tagged with your Apple-ID, which would then have to be replaced with generic one later.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

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