how do i completely wipe my mac?

[ruk110]

Hi people im selling my mac and need to know how to COMPLETELY wipe my mac clean back to factory. I have tried to do this in the past but it seems to remember bits and bobs of my info and or preferences from before i cleared it. i want to avoid this and make it 100% clean again

thanks

 

[mulo]

sudo rm -rf /

 

[miles01110]

Use your restore/retail disc and reformat the drive. "sudo rm -rf /" will not erase the drive completely.

 

[mulo]

Use your restore/retail disc and reformat the drive. "sudo rm -rf /" will not erase the drive completely.

err yes it will

 

[miles01110]

err yes it will

No, it won't. "rm" is not the same as a reformat, and does not destroy the extant data on the disc. Look it up.

 

[anfield11]

Just getting in on this has I had the same question. Once I restore can I then reload later versions of the O/S, iLife and iWork etc. to sell it with these?

Thanks

 

[miles01110]

Just getting in on this has I had the same question. Once I restore can I then reload later versions of the O/S, iLife and iWork etc. to sell it with these?

Thanks

Do you mean once you reinstall the operating system? Yes.

 

[ormie]

Open up disc utilities. Look for you hard drive and select it then, pick erase and choose the option to zero out, can't remember what it's called but it's the one that overwrites many time by zeroing out the disc. You'll see what I mean when you look. It'll take a long long time but should do the trick but no disc, apart from a smashed up disc, that can't be scoured for recoverable data. The other option is to buy a cheep new hdd and replace the current one with that then use the original as an external drive.


Cheers, Macjim.

 

[anfield11]

Do you mean once you reinstall the operating system? Yes.

I'm seling a MacBook Air. Have the original discs to restore. I then have family packs for the latest O/S, iLife and iWork that were loaded onto it, so yes, I guess I mean reinstall.

 

[anfield11]

I'm seling a MacBook Air. Have the original discs to restore. I then have family packs for the latest O/S, iLife and iWork that were loaded onto it, so yes, I guess I mean reinstall.

Thinking about this a bit more. Are there any tricks I should be aware of in using the restore disc for my MBAir? Obviously no disc drive and I know you use the disc drive from another machine [in my case my iMac] but are there any potential issues?

Thanks