Reformatting a 2008 iMac

[nasacpa]

Hello. I'm running Mavericks on my iMac.

I was running Bootcamp, but had problems with that. I thought I had uninstalled it correctly, but now, half my drive is formatted for Windows, and I cannot access it via Bootcamp or Disk Utilities.

I'm thinking of reformatting the whole drive, if possible, but cannot locate my original CD.

Is there a way for me to format the drive and install Mavericks WITHOUT the original CD?

TIA,

Brian

 

[hologram]

Clone your Mac drive to an external disk (you should be doing regular backups anyway), boot from that, reformat your internal, then restore everything from your backup.

By the way, I have a 2008 iMac too, maxed out at 4gb ram, and I found Mavericks 10.9.0 to be so slow it was unusable so I went back to 10.8.5 using the method I described above. I thought about trying it again when the 10.9.2 update came out, but I didn't. Now I'm waiting for the 9.3 release.

Are you able to run Mavericks fast enough to be usable? I might have to buy a new computer when the iMac is next updated, and I'd like to be running the latest OS so it will be easier to migrate everything.

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there a way for me to format the drive and install Mavericks WITHOUT the original CD?

So it still boots to Mavs okay?

If so, just use this utility from Apple with a 1GB or larger USB key to make a recovery key.

Then option key boot to the USB key. Once you see the recovery screen start Disk Utility and select the drive brand name at the very top on the left side then go to the erase tab and erase the entire disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then quit Disk Util and click Reinstall OS X at the top. This will DL the ~5GB OS over the Internet and install it on your Mac.

Of course this wipes all your data and just gives you the OS with no apps or data on there.

 

[nasacpa]

Hologram,

Thanks. Actually, I finally found my disk, and am now reinstalling Mavericks.

I'm running a 2008 iMac, 2.4 DuoCore, with 4 GB memory. Mavericks works just fine on it. I was even using a Windows emulator. NOT the fastest machine in the world, but it wasn't slow. Had plenty of pep to do my work (tax preparation, spreadsheets, word process), and surfed the web just fine.

In the meantime, I went and bought a 13" rMBP, and maxed out the memory. I'm actually using the MBP as my main work station now.

bkb

----------

Thanks, Weaselboy.

Boots to Mavericks just fine, like it always did.

bkb

 

[hologram]

Glad to know you're sorted, and I appreciate the reply. I have a 2.8 Core2Duo, but everything I did on Mavericks, even opening folders with a few items inside or a Text document, had a spinning beachball.

10.9.3 should be out soon. I'll try it again then.

 

[nasacpa]

Hologram, that's odd. Your processor is faster than mine, so I don't know what would be causing such a delay.

I solved some delays on my OLD MBP using the Activity Monitor. I had some kernel process using 100% + of my cpu capacity. Solved that by removing bootcamp (no longer used it on that computer) and reinstalling Mavericks.

 

[Weaselboy]

Glad to know you're sorted, and I appreciate the reply. I have a 2.8 Core2Duo, but everything I did on Mavericks, even opening folders with a few items inside or a Text document, had a spinning beachball.

10.9.3 should be out soon. I'll try it again then.

Your 2008 iMac should easily run Mavs. Sounds like maybe you have some sort of software conflict perhaps?

 

[hologram]

maybe you have some sort of software conflict perhaps?

Maybe. Safari 6.1.2 sucks up most of my ram and creates a bunch of swapfiles and pageouts, but other than that Activity Monitor doesn't show anything unusual. I don't think it's my extensions, I only have 1Password, Click to Flash, Do Not Track Me and Flash to HTML5 running. They shouldn't use all my ram and cause a system slowdown. Even so, I quit Safari a couple of times a day to free everything up again. I suppose I should try running for a day or two in Safe mode and see what happens.

As a matter of fact, I've been getting a lot of beachballs with 10.8.5 lately, too. Maybe the drive is beginning to go bad. S.M.A.R.T. shows it being OK, but the last time I lost a drive things got slow before it happened.

Oh well, if they announce an iMac upgrade during WWDC, even a small one, it will be time for a new computer. If not, I'll just keep chugging along, either until an upgrade comes out or this one dies.

 

[Weaselboy]

As a matter of fact, I've been getting a lot of beachballs with 10.8.5 lately, too. Maybe the drive is beginning to go bad. S.M.A.R.T. shows it being OK, but the last time I lost a drive things got slow before it happened.

Ahh... that could be.

A good test also is to make a new temp account then run from there and see how that works. That will at least tell you if it is something specific to your account setup.

 

[hologram]

Thanks, I'll try that.