On Jan 28, 2013, at 12:24 PM, kimtoufectis <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm getting a G4 iMac ready to sell (I'm not willing to give up the G4 > "Sunflower" form factor so I found a faster one with a larger display). You'd > think a 10-year old mac user would know what to do, but no dice; as a > non-techie I need some step-by-step guidance. > > I bought it used 18 months ago with 10.5.8 installed. The prior user swept it > pretty clean beforehand and set up a 15 GB bootable "Recovery" partition on > the hard drive in addition to the 105 GB "OS X" partition from which it > boots. I imagine this is the key to putting the machine back the way I got > it. I think what I want to do is boot from the Recovery partition, then > overwrite the current main partition with another version of the recovery > partition. Questions: > 1. Can I do this from Disk Utility or do I need other software to proceed? > 2. What are the steps I need to follow to proceed? You're on the right track: 1) Boot from your recovery partition by holding down the Option key while starting up. 2) Start Disk Utility and erase the larger partition. 3) Presuming that the "recovery" disk was set up with the OS X installers, install OS X on the freshly erased "drive". 4) To leave it ready for the next users, just quit the new user dialog like Dale says.. To install the Ralink drivers and have them work 'Out of the box' is a little more complex, maybe. First thing to try is run the installer and see if it will let you select the new Main drive as the place to install them; if it does, then just install and go. If it does not, then you'll have to actually boot from the new drive, create an admin user, install the drivers, then delete the user as described in this hint: <http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071030151739791> The warning here about being careful with dscl is correct, and all those dots and spaces in the command are important. It may well be far simpler to save the installer on the newly formatted disk after installing OS X and give the new person a note saying "Run this thing first!" to install the drivers. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "G-Group" group. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
