# Reformat a Mac Desktop Computer to Windows



## SetoKaze (Jan 8, 2008)

I don't know much about computers, but is there a way I could reformat my Mac Computer to run windows? I have heard about Bootcamp and Emulating software, but can I get rid of Mac completely and have Windows installed, or would the hardware not support it?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

the short answer is no, it can not be done. long answer is 1st, it has to be an intel based mac, not any of the g3/4/5 or older macs. and you have to have leopard installed on the mac to use bootcamp. you could then install windows vista and then use its live partition utility to expand thee win partition to the whole hard drive, thus getting rid of the mac partition, but that can old lead to problems in the future, as if your windows install ever has any issues with startup, the mac hardware will reset to looking for the mac os, and ignoring windows, and then you'd have to boot back into the mac os, reformat the hard drive, install os x and then run bootcamp to fix thee windows boot, only it will not be there anymore because you had to reformat the hard drive to reinstall os x. if you want to run windows only, the best thing is not to get or use a mac. if you want to learn to use the mac os, but still have windows as an option, then an intel mac with bootcamp is for you. remember, except for many high end games, there is a mac app that can do what ever you need done in windows, and it'll be compatible with the windows app too.


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## SetoKaze (Jan 8, 2008)

Well I just got a Mac, so I can still use boot camp with it, or does that only apply to intel macs, and how can I tell which kind of Mac it is? Also, mentioned was that there is a Mac App that can do whatever can be done in Windows, does Photoshop also apply to this?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Photoshop came to the Mac before it did to Windows, so yes, there is a Mac version you can buy. And yes, Bootcamp is only for Intel Macs. Goto the apple icon in the upper left and goto About this Mac, that will tell you what Mac you have.


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## SetoKaze (Jan 8, 2008)

Oops I didn't mean that photoshop thing, I was thinking Linux. So if I have a G4 it is impossible pretty much?

So would I still be able to have Linux on it at least? Or use it as a server?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

yes, a g4 will not run windows natively, which means bootcamp will not work. as for linux, there are many that run on the mac, ppclunix being one. but os x is unix based, and you can do all the same things with it. infact apache is part of os x.


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

As sinclair_tm said, Mac OS X is a Unix-like operating system so you can do almost everything on it that you could do on Linux. The upside of Mac OS X is that it's one of the easier operating systems.

If you really want to do Linux on the Mac, Yellow Dog, Debian and Gentoo Linux are good distributions that run on PPC. Yellow Dog is specifically designed for PPC machines. I'd still recommend sticking with Mac OS X on that machine. It's much easier to use than Linux and you can still run servers like Apache.


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## nhnewbie (Dec 25, 2008)

Help, Help,

Got a Macbook fro my son who is a student and the computer tech convinced us to load XP as the operating system on the Mac. My son would prefer to be using a pure Mac. Question: how do I reformat the hard drive and reinstall MAC OS X on the Mac??

Thanks for your help.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

The Macbook came with some DVDs, one will say OS X install, and the other will be Applications install. As you start the Macbook up, hold down the option key. You will then get a gray screen that will show hard drive icons of the OSes installed on it. One will be Windows, and there may even be a second one that is the Mac OS, if there is, click on it and it will boot into the Mac OS. Once there you can open Bootcamp and tell it to reclaim the hard drive space from Windows, deleting it from the Macbook. If another hard drive icon does not show up, then stick in the OS X Install DVD and it's icon should show up and then click on it and it will boot from it. Now it should allow you to reformat the hard drive and install OS X. Once it is done, stick in the other DVD and run it to install the rest of the apps that a new Mac comes with.


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