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AmandaSalisbury

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Formatting a PowerBook G4

Hello,

I need to know how I can format my PowerBoog G4, I bought it from a friend, and there are lots of trash almost everywhere, softwares that I don't need and all.. I want to get rid of all that and perhaps format it to be as good as new. I need to know that urgently please ASAP. Need to get some work done.

Thanks alot in advance.
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Irwin Santos
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Locate the OSX system CD.  boot from the CD, and follow the instructions.
Hi Amanda,

To format your Macintosch CD you need to boot your Mac using another Disk. The OS will not allow you to do anything with your system disk if you boot the computer using it. You always need to boot using a CD or another HD to be able to format or reinstall Mac OS.

If you got the original CDs with your Powerbook you can reinstall Mac OS using them and format all the disk starting from scratch. The original CDs (or DVD) installs even the iLife apps.

I hope this helps,

G. Acilu
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gacilu
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IanDuncan

One other way you can do it if you have another mac handy is to boot the one you want to format as a target disk (boot it holding down the T key), then connect it to the other mac with a firewire cable.  It will appear as another disk which you can format using Disk Utility (in your Utilities folder, in the Applications folder).  This is one way to nuke it if you don't have the install disks, but then you're left with a machine that kind of sort of doesn't do anything!

Otherwise do as above, boot to the CD (boot holding down the C key), then when it asks you how you want to install (upgrade, new install, etc) just tell it you want a new install which will delete everything.
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Thank you very much all for the help and time spent, appreciated.