Reset to factory

[zebek]

Hey everyone,
New here and searched but couldn't find the answer so thought I would post, so be gentle. About 5 years ago I purchased a Macbook for my daughter it had some issues and after 5 repairs her extended warranty gave her a new Macbook pro since they stopped making the Macbook. The original one had a restore disk, but the new one didn't come with any disks in the box. Every search I come up with tells me to use the disk to restore to factory settings. I never questioned the no disk thing as I thought I heard at the time apple was stopping disks. Can some one please tell me if I am crazy and if not how I need to reset her macbook?
Thanks

 

[yusukeaoki]

Did you purchase it fairly early?
All the models after 10.7 was released never got a disk.

You can go into recovery mode in your HARD disk and create a USB boot if you would like to fresh install your OS.

 

[maflynn]

but the new one didn't come with any disks in the box.

Apple now has a hidden restore partition instead of disks. To enter the restore partition you hit the cmd-r keys while booting up. From there you can reset your new mac to factory settings if you wish.

 

[justperry]

A restore without a secure wipe is not secure, the new owner still can scan the HD/SSD for files.

You don't even have to reinstall, if you create a new user with admin permissions and then login to the new account and remove the old user and then secure erase it would also do the trick.
There's a few steps more but essentially that's it.
(Steps like changing admin password and empty caches and folders in /private/var/folders etc...)