how do i format my ibooks hard drive to reinstall OSX?

You use the CDs that came with the iBook. You just put them into the computer one at a time and follow the on screen instructions. You pretty much have to sit there and watch what it's doing most of the time so you can change the disks as the machine asks for them. There are two kinds of reformats as I recall, one is a complete and one is a partial. If you pick the complete, all the data on your HD will be lost (erased and then replaced)- so if you have anything on there you want to keep, get it off there before you start. I did my iBook a couple months ago. It will be just like it was when you bought it. You will then have to connect to the internet and update all the software. There will be old versions of all the programs.

Welcome to the forum and keep us posted on your progress. Which model iBook is it and why are you reistalling OS X? Just curious. Are you having some trouble with it?

I should mention that the CDs are number coded. The one with 1 dot goes first and so on. I think there are 6 CDs. Or maybe 5- I forget.

cheers for the quick replys guys. ive just had it 6 months, and it is my first mac, and its very experimental and theres lots of rubbish on there. its also running a bit slow, so i thought id wipe it all off. i do it with my pc every 6months or so.

its the 700mhz, 30gb, 256mb, cd-rw/dvd model with 14.1 screen, lovely machine.

once again cheers guys

i take it i have to boot from the OSX cds then? ie - have them in when i turn it on?

If you want a clean install, you should first backup all your important data, put in the OS X install CD and restart holding option or alt depending on the keyboard, it should bring up a screen that you can see all of the drives on the computer that have a boot system, select the CD, the iBook will load up an installer, but it wont delete anything, it would actually cause tons of problems if you try to install the older version over the newer version, so goto the menu bar and select the disk utility and click the erase tab, select your drive NOTE you can't back out after selecting it, so make sure you get every important file backed up. then you select to erase the drive, this will take quite a bit of time, I've done it on my iBook 600, 30Gb, 640Mb, ATI Rage 8Mb, combo drive, took a loooong time, so go watch a movie, hit the stores, you should be able to beat Zone Of The Enders for the PS2 in the time this takes without skipping anything(about 7 hours for a good player, but I whittled it down to 5 52 once) once its done bring up the partitioning tab if you like and set the partitions any way you like, its quite simple, if not then jump strait to the installer, install the OS 9 drivers, since they sometimes come in handy, and install the OS, simple stuff, takes a bit of time to complete.