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    Formatting HDD??? (please help)

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by 2-$73P T0M™, Jan 24, 2009.

  1. 2-$73P T0M™

    2-$73P T0M™ Notebook Enthusiast

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    Okay so a few months back I bought a 500gb Western Digital HDD for my 17" mbp. I tried to run boot camp yesterday and I keep getting this message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.

    Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again."

    So I back up what files I need to keep. I open up my disk utility and I cannot erase, or partition in there. It simply won't work at this point I just need to reformat and make the Volume Mac OSX (Journaled) cause right now its just volume. Like I said I've backed up what I feel I need to keep cause I have my original HDD. First off, I just cloned the original drive using super and SATA to USB cable. I am honestly stumped at what to do. I just want to format and get past this so please any help would be greatly appreciated I'm banging my head against the wall on this one guys.
     
    2-$73P T0M™, Jan 24, 2009
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  2. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

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    Many had claimed by dragging the Time Machine plist into the trash bin (not emptying it) would work. Give it a shot and see.

    cheers ...
     
    qhn, Jan 25, 2009
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  3. 2-$73P T0M™

    2-$73P T0M™ Notebook Enthusiast

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    So like make a time machine list and then drag it into the trash cause I didn't use time machine to back up I just backed up some stuff i wanted to keep I hav all my install disks still laying around.
     
    2-$73P T0M™, Jan 25, 2009
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  4. circa86

    circa86 Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    Time Machine plist? That has nothing at all to do with this issue does it?

    Anyway, do you or did you already have a bootcamp partition? or are you trying to create one on the external HDD? You can't use the BootCamp Utility with an external HDD. Or are you just saying you want to re-format your internal HDD?

    If you are trying to do that, of course you cannot use Disk Utility (which is installed on the internall HD) to reformat and erase the volume that it is on.

    You will need to boot from your OS Install Disks (Disk 1) and use Disk Utility that is part of the boot disk. It is pretty straightforward from there, and there are tons of guides online to do this, even on Apple's website. The one thing to remember is to make sure to format your internal HDD with a GUID Partition Table in the Options section of the Partion Tab. This will allow the machine to boot from the drive.
     
    circa86, Jan 26, 2009
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