Selling Mac - How Do I Remove All Files/Settings?

Hi guys,

I'm selling my Macbook and am wanting to delete everything from this, how would I go about doing this?

Cheers
arowe

 

Erase and reinstall the operating system from your OSX CD

1 Insert the Mac OS X installation disc, and then double-click the Install Mac OS X icon.
2 In the Installer, click Utilities, and then click Restart.
3 When the Language Chooser appears, select your language, and then click the Continue button (looks like an arrow).
4 Choose Utilities > Disk Utility.
5 Select your disk from the list on the left, and then click the Erase tab.
6 Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format pop-up menu, type a name for your disk, and then click Erase.
After the disk has been erased, choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility, and then follow the instructions in the Mac OS X Installer to reinstall Mac OS X.

Once the installation is complete, you may be prompted to use the Applications installation disc that came with your computer to reinstall your iLife applications (GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and iWeb). To reinstall your iLife applications, insert the Applications installation disc, double-click the Install Bundled Software icon, and then follow the onscreen instructions.

Information taken from Apple's support site.

 

Now hold on there. Do note that a reformat will not fully delete your data. Though it may appear to be gone, it may still be recoverable with some work. This won't be a problem with a large number of buyers, but if your notebook falls into the wrong hands, your data may be at risk. What you need to do is to make sure the data is gone by doing random writes. The guide below should help...

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/it/policies/erase-mac.html

A lot of people don't sell their computer with the hard drive. I find it fine to sell it with the drive, so long as all the measures have been taken to ensure that the old data is permanently gone.

Do note this will take a long time.

 

I think for users this paranoid, a good, thorough multi-wipe format followed by several holes drilled via drill press, throwing the drive into molten steel, pouring the steel into a block, putting the block onto a rocket, firing the rocket into the sun, and then using the Large Haldron Collider to create a black hole that destroys the earth and solar system is the *most* sufficient way to ensure the data is not recoverable.

Except by hacker aliens. There's additional steps to handle that scenario.


(I don't think your typical or even most atypical users have to do more than a format and reinstall)

 

when you reinstall Mac OS X.. you can choose to reformat with a secure erase that goes through and re-writes the entire drive, making no data recoverable at all.

 

Once your identity is stolen, it is very hard to get it back. It may seem like a slim chance, but there's definitely a crowd of people out there who purchase these kinds of laptops for the sole reason of identity theft. My EliteBook (and my older nx9420) have on BIOS DOD compliant disk erasing, and Apple gives the option for secure erasing during reformat, both are additions which I appreciate very much. Destroying the hard drive also hurts the resale value a lot, so keeping a safe erased HDD in just makes sense.

 

By using OSX's secure erase........

Select both of the options Zero all data and 8 Way Random Write Format, and then click OK (which will return you to the Erase menu). Now click Erase. The procedure will take quite a long time; typically for a 40GB Hard Drive it may take up to 36 hours to complete.


Holy smokes! By deduction, a 250 GB drive could take 225 hours to clear! Yowsah!

 

I recommend using a secure erase that uses ATA Drive native instruction.
Because it is not software based and overwrites by cylinder not sectors it is much faster.

 

Does not this utility require that the user boot the Mac using a MSDOS boot disk with the utility copied to it?

Taken from the "readme" file on the utility: " HDDerase.exe must be run from an actual DOS environment"

 

Your average user does not need to use a DOD grade wiping program. I work in computer forensics and I can tell you that zeroing the drive once is more than sufficient. The time and cost to attempt to recover data that has been zeroed only once exceeds $50,000.

If someone cares to steal your identity, they will go for an easier mark. Generally what people like to do is purchase used hard drives from ebay by themselves and then do the forensics on them.

 

I think you can create your own DOS bootdisk.

 

Yep Agreed over paranoid anyway Poster is asking and we are just giving suggestion.

 

Yeah, If I remember correctly there have been rewards to anyone that can recover data from a drive that has been zeroed only once, and no one has claimed it, Or that might be drilling a hole in a hard drive :| either way, zeroing it once is enough.

 

The easiest way to accomplish this is to create a guest account, log in, then log out....

 

If only he asked a couple months ago, eh?

OP: Besides OSX's "secure erase" functionality (which I assume does the same thing, but I could be wrong), any utility capable of zero-writing a disk will do what you're looking to do.

 

Heh, yeah, to bad they fixed that a while ago, and I don't think it zero'd the disk

 

This might be helpful...

 

Paranoid or not paranoid, I'll take all the precaution possible to erase the data to have a piece of mind.