How to wipe MacBook Pro Retina Clean?

[Calisi*]

You don't want an encrypted partition. Go back and do it again and in the dropdown in Disk Util pick the regular Mac OS Extended format like in my screen grab.

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OHH!!! That would explain it! Thank you SO much for all your help! You've really been wonderful!

 

[locoboi187]

Myself and many others on here have upgraded the OS and it does not erase your data. You can do a quick search to confirm what I am saying if it makes you feel better, but I'm not making this up.

The only reason I encourage a backup to be safe is prior to the install the installer does an aggressive scan on the disk and then the install itself results in a lot of write activity to the disk.... so if you have a drive that may be on its last legs, the strain of an OS install can push it off the cliff.



If is pretty easy. When the screen comes up you will be asked for your wifi password, then the recovery module is downloaded and displayed. When that comes up just click install OS. Then have a beer while the 4.7GB OS install is downloaded from Apple's servers and installs.

Thanks for your help. Hope all goes well!

 

[hajime]

OP has a Retina with SSD, so the secure erase option will not be available (it will be greyed out).

OP> If you are just doing a reinstall for yourself, what justperry explained will do the trick. But if you are selling the machine and want to make sure your data is wiped securely, the best way is to turn on Filevault2 encryption and wait for that to finish, then do what justperry said. This will encrypt all your data and then the erase it.

Where is the Filevault2 encryption? Can IT people still recover the data later?

 

[Weaselboy]

Where is the Filevault2 encryption? Can IT people still recover the data later?

Not without the encryption password.