CanadaRAM
Saturday 14 July 2007 à 18:38
QUOTE (redstrype @ Mon 23 Apr 2007, 13:44)
I've just purchased a friend's powerbook G4 and I was wondering if it's possible to wipe his drive without reinstalling OS X
No, any reformat or erase will take out the OS as well. You need either the original disks for THAT model machine, or a retail OS package of the same or greater version than shipped with the machine.
Deleting what you can and installing a new user as posted is the best bet. If he can't find the disks, it would be best to buy a retail set; you will need it for troubleshooting, repairing the hard drive, changing the main password, etc. and will be up a creek without a bootable OS CD.
Also consider getting an external firewire drive, both for audio files and to have a bootable clone of the system on it.