Possible To Factory Reset No recovery CD?

[Jedi5]

I have a late 2009 iMac I'd like to factory reset so I can give away.
Thing is, I no longer have the recovery CD.

Current OS running on the late 2009 iMac is High Sierra.

Is it possible to factory reset without a recovery disk?

I'd really hate to purchase a Snow Leapord disk just so I can give away this iMac.

Thanks!

 

[velocityg4]

Just download High Sierra and rip it onto a Flash Drive. Then you can clean install off the Flash Drive.

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

You can use a USB flash drive or other secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install the Mac operating system. These steps are primarily for system administrators and other experienced users.

support.apple.com

There's also Diskmaker X. Which makes the job of creating a bootable installer a bit easier.

Downloads

diskmakerx.com

Also if this is the 21.5 model. Catalina runs well on mine using the DOSDude1 patch. As the 27" has different GPU options. I don't know if it runs as smooth. I assume it does. As my 2010 MBP also runs it well.

 

[4sallypat]

Restart, hold ALT/Option key down - if you see a recovery partition, you can restore it back to the operating system.