Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Passing on iMac to son...

R

Resoman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 3, 2012
18
0
Well, today i "migrated" from my old iMac to a new 27", and the process went fine, though it took several hours.
What I would like to do is to give my old iMac to my son, who also uses Apple stuff. How do I remove all the files except the OS, and can the iMac be "renamed" for his use?
Any thoughts will be appreciated!
Gary,
Iowa City
 
You can create a new admin account for him and then log into it, delete your old account which will eliminate your files and such and then he will have a new Mac to use.

Then to rename the Mac, under Sharing in System Preferences, is where it can be renamed.
 
Probably better just to reinstall the OS, though. That makes sure everything is clean and set up right with no old dross. Doing this with an external HD or USB stick is easy and quick.
 
Yes, it could be recovered if he tried really hard, but not inadvertently. Unless you do a secure wipe of the drive you could still send it off to the data recovery guys. Is he seriously likely to do that?
 
tillsbury said:
Yes, it could be recovered if he tried really hard, but not inadvertently. Unless you do a secure wipe of the drive you could still send it off to the data recovery guys. Is he seriously likely to do that?
Click to expand...

I am not OP, but I am thinking about selling my 2011 MBP and I want to make sure that all private data is erased for good.

How do I do a secure wipe?

Thanks for your support!
 
tom0511 said:
I am not OP, but I am thinking about selling my 2011 MBP and I want to make sure that all private data is erased for good.

How do I do a secure wipe?

Thanks for your support!
Click to expand...

Boot up to recovery disk and go to disk utility and zero out the disk at least two passes should be enough to wipe out the data and it will not be recovery again.
 
Applefanboy10 said:
Boot up to recovery disk and go to disk utility and zero out the disk at least two passes should be enough to wipe out the data and it will not be recovery again.
Click to expand...

This. With any hard drive, I always either do a multiples overwrite, or just remove and smash. There's something satisfying about smashing an old hard drive.
 
nrubenstein said:
This. With any hard drive, I always either do a multiples overwrite, or just remove and smash. There's something satisfying about smashing an old hard drive.
Click to expand...

Single overwrite should do on a big hard drive they take ages. Though I always take my own hard drives out and smash them with a bolster breaking the platters - now that is really satisfying :D
 
Fresh install?

Hi, All,
I'm the OP and have made an administrator account for my son. How do I go about reinstalling OSX so that my programs and data are overwritten? Do I still want to delete my account? Do I do that first?
Thanks,
Gary
 
tillsbury said:
Yes, it could be recovered if he tried really hard, but not inadvertently. Unless you do a secure wipe of the drive you could still send it off to the data recovery guys. Is he seriously likely to do that?
Click to expand...
Actually, it's not hard at all. There is an app that I downloaded the free trial of, it's called "Disk Drill," and I took my newly REFORMATTED Time-Machine backup (oh, by the way, I'm not 'yelling' when I capitalize letters... I'm just empherserzing). Anyway... I took my newly Erased and Formatted Time Machine Backup and ran Disk Drill, and pretty much EVERY FILE I ever had was still on there!

So, consider this post to be infomative -- Moderator? If you think this is an inappropriate post, PLEASE DELETE IT.... the reason it might be inappropriate is that some people might use Disk Drill (or one of the bazillion utilities out there) for inappropriate reasons and look through private stuff. I'm not making this post to recommend that. No. Rather, I'm making this post so y'all know how EASY it is to find files that everyone thinks is deleted!

How to do that? Just do a Secure erase. Me? I would be happy with a one-pass secure erase. That way, if I ever sell my beloved iMac (or get frustrated with it because SOME people on SOME forums say really, really dumb stuff), I would run a one-pass, or a three-pass secure erase to erase any banking info, etc.

[edit: added after sandwich]: Just for kicks, do this (you, or whoever's reading this), get a drive and erase it. First, load it up with some files -- some music, photos of grandma's casserole, rover balancing his bone on his nose, love letters to your teacher, whatever, THEN, erase your disk. Do it however, drag the files into trash, go into Disk Utility, partition / format it, whatever. Now, download Disk Drill and use Disk Drill on your disk.

Oh...my...goodness y'all are gonna be surprised! (And enlightened! Like I was).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back