: Oh, how basic! Well, a lot depends on which Mac you have and how you intend
: to use it. I'm assuming you want to use it as a Mac and will want your
: hard drive formated as an HFS+ volume rather than UFS (Unix file system),
: which is OK for Darwin but not for Aqua. Formatting it to use OS 9 is
: another story and that depends entirely on the model you have, since
: newer Macs can't boot into OS 9 at all and, hence, you can't even install
: OS 9 on a newer machine from an OS 9 CD. Cheerful, what are you trying to
: do - reformat your hard drive, erasing everything that's on it now, and
: then install OS X for the first time, upgrade from OS 9 to OS X or
: reinstall OS X after reformatting your hard drive? The safest thing is to
: use the OS X installer to do it all. The installer leads you through the
: sequence and provides you the option of erasing your hard drive - which
: basically means it will reformat it for you. If it's just an upgrade, it
: will handle that for you, too. If you really just want to erase your hard
: drive and format it for OS X without actually installing it, insert the OS
: X installation disk and select Disk Utility from the Installer menu. You
: can use the disk utility to repair your disk's directory, to repair Unix
: permissions and to reformat the hard drive. You will need to use Disk
: Utility before installation if you want to partition your hard drive into
: more than one partition - if you need to ask how to do this, however, you
: probably shouldn't do it. Note that there is a checkbox for formatting for
: OS 9 at the same time as OS X in Disk Utility - this is done automatically
: by the installer otherwise. Also, make sure that journaling is turned on
: if you're using Panther - this is a good thing - it helps prevent
: directory corrucption from crashes. BTW, if you have a newer Mac that
: cannnot boot into OS 9, you can only install OS 9 by using the installer
: program on the original disks that came with the computer.
: Hope this helps.
Hey, sorry for the lateness of this reply. I already have OS X; I have OS 9 on my computer as well. I'm basically trying to erase everything on the drive since I'm selling my computer. (I already have a G5 lined up for replacement however). So I'm wondering if I would have to format 9 and X seperately, or could I do it in one fell swoop?
Thanks.
