Best way to reformat a Macbook I want to sell?

RandomEvent · #1 01-18-2008, 11:15 PM

Basically, I'm considering selling my MacBook because I never use it. I've seen other people sell them here on TB, and I'm wondering what you did to format it before you sell it. I basically want to be able to ship it off like it just came from the factory if possible. I don't want any of my programs, files, etc on the HDD.

seanm · #2 01-18-2008, 11:51 PM

Buy a new drive and install it.

RandomEvent · #3 01-19-2008, 12:41 AM

I was gonna do that if all else failed. Just put in a new drive, then ship it off and let whoever got it install OSX themselves.

Barkless Dog · #4 01-19-2008, 05:13 AM

Can't you just do a clean install of OSX?

matrok · #5 01-19-2008, 05:51 AM

Should be able to boot up the OSX disc, wipe the drive and do a clean install. Do you have Tech Tool Pro? That would wipe it for sure.

Geoff St. Germaine · #6 01-19-2008, 08:12 AM

Do you have an external hard drive?

burk48237 · #7 01-19-2008, 08:28 AM

If it's still under Mac care your local Mac dealer can do it no charge. Thats what I did wit my Emac before I sold it.

RandomEvent · #8 01-19-2008, 12:42 PM

I was worried if I did a clean install that I wouldn't be able to check the PC again unless I reconfigured OSX. I suppose I could do that, just make some bogus accounts like "User1" or something like that.

Yes, I have an external HDD. Why?

I will check out Tech Tool pro.

I don't have Mac coverage unfortunately.

PSPookie · #9 01-19-2008, 12:43 PM

A hammer

RandomEvent · #10 01-19-2008, 01:42 PM

Hammer my ass, lol. I posted it up in the Classifieds, so looks like I gotta find a way to slick for sure now. Any more input would be appreciated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSPookie

A hammer

Barkless Dog · #11 01-19-2008, 02:22 PM

just boot up from the OSX install disc do a clean install and create a Administrator account user with a simple pass word and when you sell it give the name & password to the new owner- simple.

RandomEvent · #12 01-19-2008, 02:37 PM

That's what I was going to do in the first place, but then I got all paranoid about things that couldn't happen, like my bank account info being stored in the cache and accessible to uber hackers on my HDD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barkless Dog

just boot up from the OSX install disc do a clean install and create a Administrator account user with a simple pass word and when you sell it give the name & password to the new owner- simple.

JansenW · #13 01-19-2008, 02:46 PM

The best way is to replace your hard disk with a new one and install the correct OS.

I would be very disappointed if I bought a Mac laptop that did not have an OS installed (i.e. bootable).

Geoff St. Germaine · #14 01-19-2008, 02:48 PM

If you have an external drive that you are willing to wipe clean then this is what I would do.

Get SuperDuper and create a bootable image of your current HD. Then reboot the computer and hold down option until the drive selection screen comes up. Select the external and boot from that drive. Once everything's up you can open up the disk utility select the internal HD, go into the erase tab, click on security options and select the 7 or 35-pass erase and then erase the drive. After that you can reinstall OS X onto the drive and be pretty confident that no personal information is retrievable on the drive. It's probably going to take a while to do a 35-pass erase though.

Bob Clayton · #15 01-19-2008, 02:53 PM

if you bought it right from Apple, you should have gotten a disk with the computer that will wipe it clean while keeping the OS on it.

whenever i wipe computers clean, i just create a dummy account "admin" and make the password "password".