Giving (or selling) an used laptop with no restore disks... What to do?

[karatekidk]

Hi there. I searched the forum, but couldn't find an answer to the question I have, so here I am.

I have an used powerbook G4 and ibook G4 which I am thinking about giving to my to my significant other or selling to someone. I, however, do not have restore disks because the machines did not come with them when I bought them used.

I know I need to erase everything including my account information and have it ready to be re-registered before giving/selling them to others. Is it possible without restore disks? To be honest, I am not even sure if my question makes sense or not... That is why I'm a newbie, I guess.

Your suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[PcBgone]

Without the restore discs, you wouldnt be able to format the hard drive and do a clean install. If you purchased a retail copy of leopard/tiger, then you could do a format of the drive, and reinstall the new os. You can delete your files off of the machines, however they could be recovered. Thats why you would need to do a format and reinstall, with a 7 pass format.

 

[Moof1904]

There are a number of options that you can pursue, depending on how much you want to spend:

1) Buy a retail copy of the latest OS (Leopard) and do a clean install.
2) Search eBay for a copy of the previous OS (Tiger) and install that. It will probably save you a bunch of money over purchasing Leopard.
3) Search eBay or elsewhere on the web for the specific disks that came with your computer. This will probably be the cheapest but also the least likely.

 

[drichards]

You can call Applecare and ask for replacement restore discs, they are around $50 or so. If you're looking for Tiger or Leopard discs on eBay, look for black ones, grey ones won't work.

 

[karatekidk]

Wow, thank you, everyone for sharing your knowledge. You guys are right on. Why did I waste my time searching answers?

Thanks again!