Having issues deleting my partition

[phaley]

Hey I know this is an age old question that has been answered many a time but I'm still hang issues with it. I've throughly searched the web and found a few different solutions to cases similar to mine but I can't seem to get this thing working so here it goes:

Once upon a time I thought Ubuntu was cool so I partitioned a small part of my hard drive to allow for this. Well now I want to free up space on my mac by deleting the partition. Here's where the problems occur. The first thing I tried was the Boot Camp Assistant to restore my hard drive but when I try to do this I get the following error:

The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.
The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

Since the Boot Camp Assistant couldn't help me I decided to try the Disk Utility. On the left side of the screen I selected Fujitsu mhy2250bh media and then clicked partition on the right. Well for whatever reason I now see 3 partitions: BOOTCAMP, disk0s5, and Linux Swap. I have no idea where disk0s5 or Linux Swap came from so they're really bothering me and I want them gone. When I click the partition and then select the "-" symbol to remove the volume the status bar does flashes and says "preparing to remove volume" and continues to do this until I have to force quit the disk utility. I have tried everything I can think of but I still can't delete these damn partitions. Any ideas?

 

[upaymeifixit]

First I would try: diskutil eraseVolume disk0s5
and if that works try it for your other volume.

If that doesn't work however, try booting into your installation disk and running disk utility from there.

 

[phaley]

Thanks for the reply. For whatever reason I can't seem to locate my installation disks so I tried using a friends. He has the disks for v10.6 of the 13" Macbook Pro and I am am currently running v10.5.8 on an early 2008 Macbook. I just assumed the disks would work on my computer however when I tried to boot from the CD it took me to the installation screen and then said "OS X cannot be installed on this computer. Is there any particular reason for this or another way to get around this?

 

[upaymeifixit]

Thanks for the reply. For whatever reason I can't seem to locate my installation disks so I tried using a friends. He has the disks for v10.6 of the 13" Macbook Pro and I am am currently running v10.5.8 on an early 2008 Macbook. I just assumed the disks would work on my computer however when I tried to boot from the CD it took me to the installation screen and then said "OS X cannot be installed on this computer. Is there any particular reason for this or another way to get around this?

It may be because you need to reformat that drive first, but don't. You don't need to install, all you need to do is select your language and then the menubar should show up at the top. From there you should see "Utilities" then select Disk Utility and try deleting the partition from there.

While you have that disk I would upgrade to Snow Leopard, all you do is run the installation while you are logged in. But that's just me.

 

[phaley]

Okay I got this figured out thanks to your tips and some thorough Google searches. I'm gonna give step by step instructions for any other noobs like myself who stumble across this post in the future. Keep in mind my goals were to delete the extra partitions and reformat my entire hard drive so my Macbook would run faster.

1. Obtain a Mac OS X install DVD. I did not have one so I torrented Snow Leopard, keep in mind this is illegal so don't ask me how and where I got the file. (If you have the install disk skip to step 3)

2. Get you your external hard drive, mine is 250 GB but it doesn't need to be that big. Then in the disk utility select your external hard drive and click partition. Add a partition by clicking the plus sign and give the partition about 10 GB of space to be safe. This will restore your hard drive and may take some time. Then, still in the disk utility, click on your 10 GB partition and there should be two boxes. In the "source" field select the mac os x install .dmg file. In the "destination" field drag the 10 GB partition to the box and apply.

3. Back up your files on the other half of your external hard drive.

4. Go to System Preferences>Startup Disk> then select the CD drive if you have the install DVD or the 10 GB partition if you followed step 2 and click apply and then restart your computer.

5. When the installer begins choose your language then proceed to the next screen but do not install OS X yet. When the tool bar at the top appears choose Utilities>Disk Utility. Choose the disk that Macintosh HD is located in, mine is called FUJITSU, and then click partition. Then under the "volume scheme" tab choose 1 partition. Make sure it is Mac OS extended (journaled) and then name it Macintosh HD or whatever you want.

6. When this is done run the installer and then you're good to go.