- Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install how to#
- Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install install#
- Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install windows 10#
- Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install download#
Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install install#
Select your desired language and time, and click Next.Ĭlick Install now and wait while Windows completes the setup procedures. Do so - you may see a message that says Windows is loading files. If not, you’ll see a message that says Press any key to boot. The Windows startup app should launch automatically.
Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install windows 10#
Insert the Windows 10 or Windows 7 startup DVD or make sure your bootable USB drive is plugged in.
Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install how to#
Here’s how to format your primary hard drive on Windows 10 or 7: Now that you have either the startup DVD or the USB, you’re ready to format your drive.
Reformat mac hard drive external for fresh install download#
Windows 7: Download the Windows 7 OS and then the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool here.įor either Windows 10 or 7, follow the instructions to create the bootable USB drive. Windows 10: Download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool here. Make sure you have an external USB (also called a thumb drive or flash drive) ready. If not, you’ll need to create a bootable Windows USB drive. If you have a Windows 10 or Windows 7 startup DVD, you can skip the next paragraph. Note that this process will delete the OS and all files, but it won’t permanently erase them. That means your primary drive won’t be in use, so we’re able to work on it. To get around that, we’ll run Windows from an installation DVD or a USB drive. You can’t format the primary drive while it’s running, for the same reason that you can’t repair a car engine while driving. Your C drive (C:) is your primary drive where the operating system (OS) is located. How to format a primary drive (C:) on Windows But it’s a little different if you’re formatting the primary drive, a secondary internal drive, or an external hard drive. If you booted from a USB disk, click “Continue” to advance to the installer.Formatting a hard drive on Windows is largely the same whether you’re using Windows 10 or 7. If you booted from a functioning recovery partition, click the “Reinstall macOS” button. With your information wipe complete, you are now ready to reinstall macOS. If you choose three or five passes, you might want to leave this running overnight. If you opted to wipe your drive securely, this might take a while-30 minutes to an hour is not unreasonable for one pass. Just give your drive a name (I recommend “Macintosh HD”, just for consistency’s sake), then click “Erase” to start the overwriting process. You only need to write over a drive once to securely wipe it, but if you’re paranoid you can also wipe it three or five times.Ĭlick “OK” once you’ve decided, but remember: if your Mac has a solid state drive, you do not need to use these options. Now move the dial up, to randomly write data over your entire drive. You still need to wipe the drive, however, or your files will remain in place, so skip to the end of this step to do so.) (If your Mac has a solid state drive, you can skip this part: your SSD will already securely erase files thanks to TRIM. If you’re wiping a mechanical drive, click “Security Options” in the window that pops up. Click your primary drive, then click “Erase” If not you can find Disk Utility in the menu bar: click Utilities then Disk Utility. To get started, click the Disk Utility option.ĭepending on how you started Recovery Mode, you may be presented with the option to start Disk Utility right away, as seen above. We’ve shown you how to securely wipe a hard drive with your Mac, and doing so in Recovery Mode isn’t really different from doing so within macOS. If you want a truly clean installation, however, you need to first wipe your hard drive. We recommend backing up files before you do this, just in case, but otherwise you’re ready for step three. Your user accounts and files will stay exactly where they are-only your operating system will be overwritten. If you want to re-install your operating system, but leave your files in place, you can skip this step. RELATED: 8 Mac System Features You Can Access in Recovery Mode Step Two: Securely Wipe Your Hard Drive (Optional) Once you’ve managed to open up the Recovery Mode in some fashion, we can move on to wiping your drive securely. You can access recovery without a partition using Network Recovery: hold Command+Shift+R while turning on your Mac and it will download the Recovery features for you. Failing that, you can create a bootable USB installer for macOS Sierra, and boot from that by holding “Option” while turning on your Mac.
If neither of these options work, don’t panic! You’ve got a couple of options yet.
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