Wiping my MBP 2011, Snow Leopard, no install discs.

omfgskyler said:

I am in the process of selling my early 2011 MBP. I just backed everything up to an external HDD. (Switching to an iMac for my heavy photo, video-editing). It has the operating system that came with 2011 Macs. I cannot find the install discs that came with my MBP, they might not have come with them? (I purchased it refurbished from Apple).

-Can I wipe/format/clean the HDD of all my info and downloaded apps without the disc? How do I do it?

-If not, is there a number or email of Apple's that I can reach to obtain the install discs that came with my MBP? (Hopefully for free)

-Can I buy Lion and use that to wipe my mac?

-If I find my discs, or get new ones, how do I wipe my mac that way?

Thank you so much

Click to expand...

You should be able to reboot into the recovery partition by holding option/alt during reboot. If not try to hold "R" and that will start internet recovery is that is an option on that unit. From either option that works you can enter disk utility and wipe the drive. Best of luck.

You can clean your system without reinstalling, first switch on file vault, if already on skip this, it will restart afterwards, when finished login into the normal User Account, make a new Admin Account (Very Important!) choose and easy password (12345-admin) then logout and into the new one, delete the normal User Account, you are done.

If you are really paranoid you could also delete files/folders in the following Folder paths.

Library/Caches---Select all files/folders inside and delete
/System/Library/Caches---Not really needed.
/private/var/folders---Select all Folder and delete.

Restart once and Secure Erase trash, that's it.

Don't forget to give password to new owner later on.

If you want the new User to have disks with it then Call Apple and let them send them the disks to you, not free, do not buy Lion or ML, they are tied to your ID, if the new owner completely erases his HD or gets a new HD he has to buy again, waste of money and making Apple richer.