How to: Delete Windows from your Mac

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Is there anything Mac’s can’t do these days?  You can even install Windows on those darn machines!  Ideally, I’d now explain you how to install Windows (XP / Vista / 7) on your Mac.  But let’s talk about something different. 

If you’ve managed to install Windows on your Mac, using bootcamp, it’s there to stay.  Right?  Well, no.  There could be many reasons why you want to get rid of Microsoft’s operating systems.  You’ve finally seen the light (kidding, I like MS and Apple equally), your OS is performing poorly, or you’ve decided that windows + your Mac = not a good marriage.

Whatever your reason might be, this post will explain you how to delete Windows and win back the precious GB’s for your Mac OSX. 

I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but my reason to delete Windows (In this case, Windows 7) from a Mac was because the entire Mac was in a pretty bad state.  So, before we sent it back to our supplier, we wanted to set it back to it’s original (a.k.a “There is only one OS on this machine”) state. 

How you do it.

First of all, find your installation DVD of Mac OSX, and put it in your Mac.

Then, start your Mac.  While booting, there’s two options which will lead to the same result.

  • Hold down the “C” key
  • Hold down the “Option key”, and select the DVD as boot device.  In case you’re using a non-Mac keyboard, hold down Alt Gr instead. 

Once you’ve booted from the DVD, you’ll end up with an environment which looks like Mac OSX.  From the top menu, choose “Utilities”.   Then, choose “Disk Utilities” from the dropdown menu. 

In the new window, check the Disk on which Windows is installed.  In  case of doubt: it’s the one formatted in NTFS.  Don’t select the disk of which the name appears when using Mac OSX (Sorry, I wish I could be more specific).  Click on the tab “Partition”  and click the button “Delete this partition” (or something similar). 

Next, select the main partition (The only one left); and simply expand it by dragging at one of the corners. 

Your Mac OSX will now be able to use the full disk again.  Your Mac is now liberated from the chains of Microsoft!  (I stole this from GNU.  But, from their view, Mac OSX is just as “evil”.)

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