Member Avatar for Selwyn

HELLO
I would like to know how i do a complete fresh install of mac leopard on my man mini.
It says in the disc utility that it is a 80 gig harddrive & come up as 74.8 , i know this is normal but i just want to make sure there isnt any old stuff on the hard drive before i install leopard.
Any help would be great
Thank you
D

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Nice outcome from and useful prompt from — a few clarifications and practical tips that fill gaps for anyone landing on this thread later.

The 80 GB → 74.8 GB difference is normal: drive makers use decimal gigabytes (1,000,000,000 bytes) while macOS reports binary gibibytes (1,073,741,824 bytes) and the filesystem/partition table also uses a little space. For a truly clean install, the important items are a reliable backup, the correct partition map for the Mac model, and a proper HFS+ (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) format for the installer to target.

Minimal, safe workflow

  • Back up everything (Time Machine to an HFS+ drive, a disk image, or a bootable clone). FAT32 (as used on Windows) loses Mac metadata and has a 4 GB file limit, so it’s not a good long-term Mac backup format.
  • Boot the Leopard installer (hold C to boot DVD or Option/Alt to pick the DVD), open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, run First Aid, then erase the drive. On Intel Mac minis select GUID Partition Table; older PowerPC minis use Apple Partition Map. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and use Disk Utility’s Security Options only if overwriting is required.
  • Quit Disk Utility and proceed with the installer; after install run Software Update to bring Leopard to the latest 10.5.x build for that machine.

Troubleshooting and extra notes
If the installer doesn’t see the drive, re-check the partition map and try Target Disk Mode (FireWire) from another Mac. SMART/First Aid failures suggest a failing HDD — replacement is safer than a reinstall. For modern SSDs, multi-pass overwrites are ineffective; prefer encryption or manufacturer secure-erase tools. Following ’s secure-wipe idea is fine for HDDs, but backing up to an HFS+ volume (not FAT32) avoids lost metadata and makes restores straightforward.

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Member Avatar for John A

In the installation options, make sure you choose "Erase and Install". If you're really paranoid, start up Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. You can then completely erase your hard disk (i.e. writing 0s all over the disk).

Member Avatar for Selwyn

HELLO
I think i have sorted it !
What i did was format a external 20 gig hard drive in fat32 on my windoze pc (you can format any hard drive under 32mb in fat32 & macs can read and write from it)
Then i will be able to erase the original mac mini harddrive & install leopard in mac os extended (journaled) & then do a complete erase & install of leopard.
I will let you know how i get on.
In the process of it right now

Member Avatar for Selwyn

HELLO
All sorted now removed all the partitions as above & installed leopard

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