Cleaning Mac Os X without the need to reinstall the OS

[datanggou]

Have too much time and no answer, huh?

If you guys don't have to answer and have too much time, go volunteer or something! This forum is for answering tech questions, not shift the topic when you don't know the answer. Leave the guy alone!

I for one like to make sure everything I have used is not traceable by another person after a computer changes hands. That doesn't mean I am a criminal. Plus, nowadays, people can find private information and photos of previous users and blackmail you. I think it's only reasonable that the school wants to make sure student hackers can't get their hands on anything. But that's all not the point. Really, you have no right to bully a person who simply want to reformat a computer! I am personally wanting to do that so my computer will rid of everything and runs faster. I shouldn't have to get approval from anyone. Stop making everything political.

 

[53kyle]

If your computer is mid 2011 or newer, you can boot up while holding the "command" and "r" keys at the same time to get into recovery HD and reinstall the OS, just be patient with it, it will download the whole OS from the internet as long as you have wifi.

If your computer isn't that new, you can get snow leopard DVDs from apple for $19.99 here:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

PS - those of you who are saying the OP isn't true, just stop. Maybe he is "assumed to have disks" but doesn't because his mac - if it IS mid 2011 or later - didn't come with them. It makes perfect sence for his school to want it formatted, especially if he just got it, which I don't know, for privacy issues like a previous user's files being left over.

EDIT: I didn't realize how old this thread is, but I am leaving that info above in case anybody is trying to find the same answer.

 

[Thor774]

Reformat is not an uncommon practice on the PC world. It can sound "crazy" to many Mac-only users but in the Windows world is a healthy thing to do after a year or so if you are not a user that takes care of what you put in your machine. Things like the Windows register can become pretty messy after a while if you install a lot of garbage.

It sounds like a policy inherited from previous deployment of Windows PCs, or from an hybrid PC & Mac environment.

I think the school's IT department should do it, but it is not a so crazy request.

As other have already mention it there are solutions for this task.

 

[old-wiz]

they (school IT) might want the unformat due to the laptop being handed down from a previous user and they want to wipe the previous user's data but are too lazy to do it themselves.

 

[dastinger]

Guys, this is a year 2011 thread..