How to prepare an iMac for sale...?

[WardC]

OK, I have sold many of my previous Macs on eBay. I will try to cover a list of things that I always do:

1) Use Drive setup and zero your drive (option to wipe completely and write zeros)...this ensures there is NO data of yours left on the drive that can be retrieved by the other party.

2) Try to install the latest Mac OS version to the drive. Then, run the software updater and install all updates. It wasn't a problem with older versions of Mac OS, but under Mac OS X the installer wants you to configure a user after you install. You may just choose to install a fresh copy of the OS and then shut the machine off

3) Clean the machine thoroughly.

4) Pack in original box exactly how it came packed. Put the plastic cover back over the display and unit, like it came from the factory, if you still have it.

5) Include all CDs, manuals, adapters, and cables that came with the unit. Use twisty ties to neatly pack the cables.

--------------------
...The key really is to make it seem as much as possible like your buyer is getting a new, fresh, clean machine. In essence, that's what most used computer buyers want...something that comes to them appearing and functioning just like it was new (that new-user experience of getting a new computer)

Ok, that's all, I'm going to bed.
-Ward

 

[MikeTheC]

SaSaSushi and Noobish:

You two are a riot. Almost made me spit my drink out, I was laughing so hard.

Man, you two know how to take a nail and drive it, don't 'cha?


P.S.: Oh, and Noobish, that really still doesn't satisfy me. So what I'm thinking of would be more along the lines of:

1. After sending any house-mates away for several days, reconfigure one of the rooms to be a lead-shielded bunker with a solid steel door and at least seven combination locks on the door, with an interlinking mechanism which requires them to be unlocked in a specific pattern and combination, known only to you. Also, preferably these should all be different kinds of locks from different vendors, purchased anonymously in a different state.
2. Install five computers, from parts you personally hand-picked, from five different computer parts dealers. Ensure the parts are all randomly interchanged from the five separate sets of purchases.
3. Load an appropriate distribution of Linux on these five computers, do all the necessary updates, deliberately do not install HFS/HFS+ support on them, and then shut them down and disconnect all network adapters from them.
4. Pick a random (say, 3-5) number of 30-pass security wipes on each drive for each Linux machine which you, in random turn, pass the hard drive amongst each of which.
5. Take the drive to a remote location where, in advance, you constructed by yourself and then hid an electromagnetic pulse generator. You would want to have built it yourself and hidden it to ensure it actually will work (instead of being built with non-functional or otherwise-devious parts. Bring the machine to a state of operational readiness, insert the drive, secure the system, set the failsafe countdown timer and retreat, backwards, the appropriate distance.
6. Take the drive, remove the top plate, and pour in acid (as you had suggested) and allow drive to thoroughly "cook" for the appropriate time interval. After this, utilizing all necessary HAZMAT protocols, clean the drive of acid and make safe to handle again.
7. Remove the platter assembly, then remove each platter independently and drill holes through each, re-assembling them in a completely random sequence.
8. Take the drive (again, as you had suggested) to a chipper and run it through.
9. Take the remains, having also carefully stripped the chipper apart personally to ensure there were no hard disk remains left inside of it, and take them to a local pottery baker, and place them inside one of their ovens which you have previously inspected to ensure it really works.
10. Take the drive's molten remains and, under cover of darkness in another state, in several locations where some kind of structure sufficiently covers you from satellite (or other) surveillance, scatter the remains.
11. Spend night in Holiday Inn Express. Then go home.

 

[Noobish]

SaSaSushi and Noobish:

You two are a riot. Almost made me spit my drink out, I was laughing so hard.

Man, you two know how to take a nail and drive it, don't 'cha?


P.S.: Oh, and Noobish, that really still doesn't satisfy me. So what I'm thinking of would be more along the lines of:

1. After sending any house-mates away for several days, reconfigure one of the rooms to be a lead-shielded bunker with a solid steel door and at least seven combination locks on the door, with an interlinking mechanism which requires them to be unlocked in a specific pattern and combination, known only to you. Also, preferably these should all be different kinds of locks from different vendors, purchased anonymously in a different state.
2. Install five computers, from parts you personally hand-picked, from five different computer parts dealers. Ensure the parts are all randomly interchanged from the five separate sets of purchases.
3. Load an appropriate distribution of Linux on these five computers, do all the necessary updates, deliberately do not install HFS/HFS+ support on them, and then shut them down and disconnect all network adapters from them.
4. Pick a random (say, 3-5) number of 30-pass security wipes on each drive for each Linux machine which you, in random turn, pass the hard drive amongst each of which.
5. Take the drive to a remote location where, in advance, you constructed by yourself and then hid an electromagnetic pulse generator. You would want to have built it yourself and hidden it to ensure it actually will work (instead of being built with non-functional or otherwise-devious parts. Bring the machine to a state of operational readiness, insert the drive, secure the system, set the failsafe countdown timer and retreat, backwards, the appropriate distance.
6. Take the drive, remove the top plate, and pour in acid (as you had suggested) and allow drive to thoroughly "cook" for the appropriate time interval. After this, utilizing all necessary HAZMAT protocols, clean the drive of acid and make safe to handle again.
7. Remove the platter assembly, then remove each platter independently and drill holes through each, re-assembling them in a completely random sequence.
8. Take the drive (again, as you had suggested) to a chipper and run it through.
9. Take the remains, having also carefully stripped the chipper apart personally to ensure there were no hard disk remains left inside of it, and take them to a local pottery baker, and place them inside one of their ovens which you have previously inspected to ensure it really works.
10. Take the drive's molten remains and, under cover of darkness in another state, in several locations where some kind of structure sufficiently covers you from satellite (or other) surveillance, scatter the remains.
11. Spend night in Holiday Inn Express. Then go home.

You're right... I like your plan better.

 

[Bauer24]

I don't get it, how is a 7 or 30 pass zero-out any better than a single pass zero out? Aren't you writing zeroes to every address on the drive? How is a second set of the same data going to help anything?