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imdipped · Nov 7, 2014, 04:04 PM

I hope this is the correct forum

I had an external disk that I had two partitioned in two. I cloned my Snow leopard onto one of them and then had the Apple store install Mavericks on my laptop. Unfortunately I didn’t have the luxury to clean install at the Apple store. I discovered later that the other partition which should have been empty, had a Recovery 10.9.5 on it. After being satisfied that my new Mavericks install was working ok, I erased the Snow Leopard partition and tried to clone Mavericks onto it. I can’t. It says I have a mbr on it. I have tried to get rid of it and reformat but Disk Utility doesn’t do it.

How can I get rid of the mbr without losing the Mavericks recovery disk on the other partition so I can do the clone and and do a clean install of Mavericks?

reader50 · Nov 7, 2014, 04:20 PM

By "mbr", do you mean it says "Partition Map Scheme: Master Boot Record" somewhere?

imdipped · 07:01 PM

I take it back. I was thinking of my thumb drive. I got rid of the master boot Record by formatting the entire device. The actual message I get when I want to clone is:

“The startup disk can’t be used as a restore source.
To use this disk as a source, restart your computer using the recovery system, and open Disk Utility again.”

This is my first attempt at doing something like this so I'm hesitant about restarting with the recovery system. I don't know what to expect and whether I can back out. I don't want to destroy what I have on the HD, I don't have a backup.

Sorry for the confusion. I'm stressed out. The title of this message should be changed but I don't know how to accomplish it.

reader50 · Nov 8, 2014, 06:05 PM

It sounds like you need to buy/borrow/steal another external drive as a working space. That, or risk fooling with your main partitions without a current backup. Or fooling with your backup drive, when your main drive isn't settled down yet.

P · Nov 10, 2014, 01:22 PM

To clarify, "MBR" is a so-called partition scheme frequently used by Windows. The alternatives are "GPT", commonly used by x86-based Macs, and "Apple partition map", which is used by older Macs. As long as you're just using the drive for storage, it doesn't really matter what partition map is used, but if you mean to boot from it, you'd better have the right format. The way to switch is, as you have discovered, to reformat the drive.

imdipped · Nov 11, 2014, 05:37 PM

Since the time of posting I have done a lot of research. I have solved my problems. The only books I had were on Snow leopard and they didn't cover my problems. A lot was changed with Lion. The web is your friend. I wish to thank all on this board who have taken the time to help.

ghporter · Nov 15, 2014, 01:51 PM

Hints on what you did to fix your issue? I'm sure others would appreciate some enlightenment. I sure would.

imdipped · 01:20 AM

On Nov. 8th I requested the Administrator to please remove my thread on the subject of ‘How can I get rid of the mbr?’ because it contains inaccurate and misleading information and would cause confusion.
I was requested to make an additional post in the thread, to sum up the status with what I learned.

After I got the genius at the Apple Store to Install Mavericks on my MacBook Pro MA895LL/A 15.4" Laptop (2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo “Santa Rosa”), I was trying to partition an external HD so I would be able to backup Mavericks to one of the two partitions. I was using Disk Utility and I couldn’t do it. I was able to partition it when I ran Snow leopard.

I was in a quandary. I didn’t know at the time that changes were made to Disk Utility starting with Lion, so much of what I was doing was wrong. I was confused.
Later, when I had time, I did the research and found out what

“The startup disk can’t be used as a restore source.
To use this disk as a source, restart your computer using the recovery system, and open Disk Utility again.”

meant:

I had to restart the computer holding down the option key and select the 10.9.5 Recovery disk as my startup disk.

Due to my inexperience, I feared I would lose what was on my hard drive. After I reasoned that Apple would give me warnings about what would happen and let me back out, I found the courage to proceed, and the OS X Utility screen came up giving me four options. One of them was Disk Utility. I was then able partition my external drive. After partitioning, I restarted by holding down the option key and selecting the startup disk

A lot of changes to the OS happened starting with Lion but I wasn’t aware of them because I only had books on Snow Leopard. I’m not too happy with the low contrast (transparency) look and feel of Mavericks and Yosemite may have more of it. My tired eyes don’t like it. I think that after I get another computer, I will reinstall Snow Leopard on my Laptop; I have a retail copy.

Vasilis · Dec 12, 2014, 07:29 AM

If I understood your last post correctly, you want to go back to Snow Leopard. A solution that i could think of, is first to use Time Machine to back up your data (use an external HD or make a partition ), and then format and install Snow Leopard. Because Maverick was running slow on my Macbook air, I followed the above steps to reinstall the Mountain Lion on it.

imdipped · 06:37 PM

Thank you Vasilis.
I will revert back to Snow Leopard on my laptop after I get another computer (a desktop). Leopard came with my laptop, I bought the retail Snow Leopard disk. Because I will have two computers I will buy Time Capsule for backups and also for roaming wi-fi for my laptop in my house. I don't noticicbly feel a slowdown with Mavericks, I just don't like the lack of contrast in the various menu bars. For example, The forward and backward arrows in the upper left hand corner of Safari. Sometimes I can't tell If I can go back or not. I don't know what to call it; translucence?, glass?, transparency? I haven't checked to see if I could re-skin. After I have everything backed up to Time Capsule, I will play with using Migration Assistant to see if I can selectivly install a single application from an external backup. If I knew for sure and had the time at the Apple Store I wouldn't have opted for a full install. I like a clean machine and I don't have one. I was wary of losing my iWork '09 installation. I read where it wouldn't install on Mavericks but would carry over from an older OS. In the best of worlds I would do a clean install and manually fresh install my other applications.
For general interest, I would assume that I couldn't install GarageBand on Mavericks from my original grey Leopard installation disks which came with iLife '08. I tried it using Pacifist Pacifist - Reviews and free Pacifist downloads at CNET Download.com and it worked. I wonder if it will work with iWork '09 also?