Recovery Of iMac Help

[James Godfrey]

Hi all

As some of you know i am a windows to mac convert, on my PC every now and again I would recover my whole computer back to the factory shipped state to get rid of any clutter on the hard drive etc.... and start a fresh.

I don't know how to do this on the Mac.

I don't have any disks so I think there must be a recovery partition on the system, i have used the cmd + r on startup and gives me a list of options... what do I select.. and what do I have to do, step by step would be great.

Thanks

James

P.S. I would also like to know exactly how to do this so if and when i come to sell my iMac for an upgraded model i know exactly what i am doing...

P.S.S. My iMac came with Lion, and it is a Mid 2011 model.

 

[S.B.G]

Fortunately, you really do not need to do a wholesale wipe of OS X. OS X doesn't get cluttered up like Windows does. OS X doesn't have a registry and bazillions of .dll's.

All you really need to do is go into your Applications folder and drag any apps you no longer need to the trash and empty it. It's as easy as that. Just be sure not to delete critical system apps.

 

[James Godfrey]

So is there no way of recovering my iMac? Thanks

Also I am about to update my router to a wireless N one which I am going to use wirelessly with my iMac, do I need to remove the old connection settings or anything I am connected to my old router with an Ethernet cable.

 

[user418]

Hi all

As some of you know i am a windows to mac convert, on my PC every now and again I would recover my whole computer back to the factory shipped state to get rid of any clutter on the hard drive etc.... and start a fresh.

I don't know how to do this on the Mac.

I don't have any disks so I think there must be a recovery partition on the system, i have used the cmd + r on startup and gives me a list of options... what do I select.. and what do I have to do, step by step would be great.

Thanks

James


P.S. I would also like to know exactly how to do this so if and when i come to sell my iMac for an upgraded model i know exactly what i am doing...

P.S.S. My iMac came with Lion, and it is a Mid 2011 model.

Mac 101: Preparing Your Old Mac For Sale Or Recycling


How To Clean Install OS X Lion

 

[robgendreau]

If you have to ask, I wouldn't attempt to erase your entire hard drive and reinstall. It will create more problems than it will solve for you.

If you buy a new Mac you can use Migration Assistant (something that runs on the new Mac), and then just erase everything on the old Mac.

Using the recovery partition to erase everything you've done is gonna take quite a while and is a worthless exercise if done for routine maintenance. It's like leveling your house because you needed to clean the floors.

Rob

 

[S.B.G]

So is there no way of recovering my iMac? Thanks

Also I am about to update my router to a wireless N one which I am going to use wirelessly with my iMac, do I need to remove the old connection settings or anything I am connected to my old router with an Ethernet cable.

Yes, you can recover your installation, provided you have proper and recent backups. If you're not using Time Machine with an external drive, you really should.

As for your network settings, you can leave them be, it won't hurt anything.

 

[James Godfrey]

Thanks for the advice, after looking around online it does seem a very long winded process, therefore I will just clean up my mac by movings applications to the trash as suggested, will any files from the applications be left with this approach.

Also when using a new router do I need to do anything to erase my old router/connection settings?

Thanks

James

 

[driftless]

Just attach your new router. If you haven't already purchased one, buy a Time Capsule - it works seamlessly with a Mac and backs everything up. And like others have said, you don't have to keep cleaning up your Mac like you did with Windows. Welcome.