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pre paring a laptop for selling

S

Sossity

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 12, 2010
1,358
31
I recently upgraded my laptop, and would like to sell my old one on ebay, how do I set it up with a blank user account? right now it has a guest account and my account with my name. I want to set it up so the new owner can get their own account and not have to log into mine with my password.

I could wipe the hard drive clean, but I have software that I would like to include, MS Office for mac, and I have used one of its 1 time use software codes on the laptop, and would lose this with a hard drive wipe clean off.
 
Chupa Chupa

Chupa Chupa

macrumors G5
Jul 16, 2002
14,835
7,396
Forget for a moment that it's a violation of Office's TOS Agreement - do you really want to give a stranger almost unfettered access to anything on your laptop, even if you "erased" it?

If you want to play it safe the wipe the drive w/ multiple passes and set it up as new. The extra $10 you'll get for include Office isn't worth the long term damage and potential identity theft that could occur if you don't. I've sold many Macs on eBay, never once did I include non-Apple bundled s/w and always get a respectable price. Also if you sell shady you'll attract shady and that just leads to headaches on eBay.

What gets you great price on eBay is lots of pictures and a clean machine. If you still have the original box that's a bonus. Make it look as new and well kept as possible. That will get you legit bids.
 
S

Sossity

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 12, 2010
1,358
31
thanks for the advice, so should I do a reinstallation of osx on the computer?

I did not have any personal documents on the computer, I just used usb drives with it, the hard drive has just apps and a few downloads.

what would be a good starting bid price for me to set for it? and should I offer a buy it now?

the computer in question is a 13 inch 2012 macbook air, running maveriks with a 256 solid state drive, and 8 gb of ram, this was upgraded from the stock 4 gb of ram. It also has a purple cover plastic case that I have kept it in, and I also have the original box.
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,137
15,601
California
Sossity said:
thanks for the advice, so should I do a reinstallation of osx on the computer?

I did not have any personal documents on the computer, I just used usb drives with it, the hard drive has just apps and a few downloads.

what would be a good starting bid price for me to set for it? and should I offer a buy it now?

the computer in question is a 13 inch 2012 macbook air, running maveriks with a 256 solid state drive, and 8 gb of ram, this was upgraded from the stock 4 gb of ram. It also has a purple cover plastic case that I have kept it in, and I also have the original box.
Click to expand...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5189

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14243

Just follow the steps at these links to wipe it for sale.

I would look at recent eBay sales of similar machine and start your listing a hundred or so below that. I'm not a fan of buy it now for more expensive items like this. I have better luck getting top prices with the auction.

IMO ditch the case and clean it up nice in the box so it looks as close to stock/new as possible.
 
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