Need help on erasing the hard drive on my iMac

[anthrodraco]

Hi,

I have an iMac purchased back in 2007. It originally came with Tiger, but I've since upgraded it to Leopard, and then again to Snow Leopard.

Is there a way I wipe my hard drive clean and still keep Snow Leopard installed? What if I want to keep certain applications I have installed such as Microsoft Office, and Adobe Photoshop and InDesign but erase everything else?

Should I just do it manually by dragging it all to the trash and erasing?

Thanks!

 

[phishindsn]

These steps assume you have a Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later CD:

Insert the Mac OS X CD.
Restart the computer.
Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the "C" key to start up from CD.
When the Installer screen appears, do not click Continue. Instead, choose Installer > Open Disk Utilities.
Select the hard drive to erase.
Click the Erase tab.
Select the volume format from the Volume Format pop-up menu.
Click Options.
Select the checkbox for "Zero all data".
Click OK.
Click Erase.