MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion- wanting to do a factory reset.

[ofiaich]

Hi everyone!

I have a MacBook Pro 13" 2.66gHz, mid 2010? It has 8gb memory and 320GB and is running Mountain Lion.

I will sell this and want to restore it to the factory settings. Mountain Lion was downloaded via Apple Store and I do not have any CD's, or other flash media with restore software.

I know I could uninstall software such as Entourage and Elmedia, and also I can delete all email accounts, iTunes accounts, my own home network settings etc and I need to check how to do that.

I will research more but any advice from experienced Mac Users is always appreciated!

Ofiaich

 

[playsontheleft]

As far as I'm aware, the only way to do a real "Factory Reset" is to re-download Mountain Lion from the App Store and re-install it following instructions here.

 

[ofiaich]

thanks playsontheleft!

I also read the following and I think if I can just delete all my own user information, then this approach too would be satisfactory...

If you do NOT have any recovery CDs to restore back to Leopard or Snow Leopard and you just want a complete wipe (similar to Windows reformat) it's quite easy on a Mac.

1) Open System Preferences

2) Click on Users & Groups

3) Unlock and create a new ADMIN user w/ no password

4) Log in as the new ADMIN user

5) Delete your old user account.

That's it. Takes about 3 minutes.

This will NOT downgrade back to Leopard or SL, your MBP will still remain on ML, unless the HDD dies and the next owner has to restore.

Again any advice much appreciated!

Ofiaich

 

[T5BRICK]

Restart your computer and hold down command + R to access the Recovery partition. Use this to reformat your HDD and reinstall 10.8.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

 

[ofiaich]

Thanks T5BRICK,

Restart your computer and hold down command + R to access the Recovery partition. Use this to reformat your HDD and reinstall 10.8.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

I will read carefully. I want to sell this MacBook Pro so want to have it in a 'out of the box' state for the purchaser!

Ofiaich

 

[habubauza]

I just sold my 2009 Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion installed. My reselling workflow was like this:

1) Deauthorize my computer from my itunes account.
2) Deactivate any Adobe products that I may have.
3) Do the same as 1,2 above for any other similar type accounts.
4) Restart the computer into recovery partition 10.8.
5) Erase the Hard Drive using the security feauture.
6) Utilize DOD (5529) M Standard which is a military standard that erases and re-writes 7 times on your disk.
7) Reinstall Mountain Lion and Stop when it ask for your Apple ID.
Done!

This is my workflow for selling my machine, I'm very concerned about security and privacy and some may have another way of doing it, you may want to do it differently especially if you want to give the new user access to software, I find it's not worth it. Anyway, Good Luck!

 

[thekev]

6) Utilize DOD (5529) M Standard which is a military standard that erases and re-writes 7 times on your disk.

Your information is out of date. They switched to a demagnetization requirement years ago, but 7 times is quite secure. No one is going to dig that far unless they know what they want.

 

[habubauza]

Your information is out of date. They switched to a demagnetization requirement years ago, but 7 times is quite secure. No one is going to dig that far unless they know what they want.

I don't know. I just copied what was written on the actual security setting. I think it's just considered a standard, probably not related to what DOD actually does. I guess if personnel were out in the field, isolated and didn't have a choice.

I do have considerations about data on my laptop, so I try to be as secure as I can, for others I understand it may be a bit much, but in this day and age I don't think you can be too careful.

 

[thekev]

I don't know. I just copied what was written on the actual security setting. I think it's just considered a standard, probably not related to what DOD actually does. I guess if personnel were out in the field, isolated and didn't have a choice.

I do have considerations about data on my laptop, so I try to be as secure as I can, for others I understand it may be a bit much, but in this day and age I don't think you can be too careful.

Like I said, it's enough to make attempted retrieval impractical. No one will go through that trying to extract personal/financial information. They might still attempt it if you were under investigation for a major crime. It would be really grasping at that point, meaning you have no reason to worry. My point was that the DOD label there in disk utility stopped being accurate years ago.

 

[ofiaich]

thanks to everyone for their input here!

My sale fell through ! I will have a good read and get myself to understand more!

Used Windows PC's for most of my time, so maybe now is the time to make a big effort with my MacBook Pro!

Thanks again!

Ofiaich