Dual Partition Question

[JM2392]

First post here guys and I have a question about my partitioned disk. A while ago I had windows installed but didn't use it much, so I went ahead and erased the disk using disk utility in hopes of expanding my Snow Leopard portion into that empty space. Unfortunately this didn't work as I planned so for a couple months I was stuck with half a hard drive. This wasn't a huge problem however it was annoying knowing I had a wasted chunk of HD space.

I also had plans to upgrade to Mountain Lion, which I did today. I installed it in the empty portion of HD space so now I am running two OS's on my machine. I was hoping that once I copied some files and apps to my Lion partition, I could simply erase the bottom partition and then drag Lion into that empty space. Not sure if this will work or how to proceed, but I've attached a screenshot detailing my problem.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

First, you should have used the BootCamp utility to undo your partitioning and not Disk Utility. Second, I suggest you wipe your entire hard disk and start from new.

 

[JM2392]

Thats what I was fearing. I have done research and the best method seems to be burning Mountain Lion to a DVD and then booting from that and installing it that way. Will I be able to wipe my disk when I boot from the DVD though?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Thats what I was fearing. I have done research and the best method seems to be burning Mountain Lion to a DVD and then booting from that and installing it that way. Will I be able to wipe my disk when I boot from the DVD though?

Yes, if you do a clean install:

• How to Clean Install OS X Mountain Lion
• How to Do a Clean Install of OS X Mountain Lion

If you want to make a bootable installation medium, you can follow these steps:

• Lion DiskMaker

• Create bootable installation medium for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
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[JM2392]

Ok great thanks Sim. I have seen both of those guides before posting but was hoping to get away with my silly method. It seems that performing a clean install requires me to make a bootable medium (in my case I will be using a 4.7GB DVD-R) and then boot from that, erase my HD, and install Lion.

Before I do that I am going to slap some of my existing files on my Toshiba and get to this early tomorrow morning.

Thanks for the help you guys, is there anything else I should know or be cautioned about before going about this?