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Restore 2011 macbook pro to factory settings

C

circa--survive

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 19, 2012
12
0
Hi all

Im looking to restore my macbook pro to its original factory settings as i am looking to sell it.

When i boot up and go to disk utility i am unsure which drives i need to erase. I want to get rid of all data!

This is what comes up when i start disk utility. What is the difference between hitachi and macintosh hd? do i need to reformat both? and what is disk 1?

Im very ocd about things like this so i need to make sure EVERYTHING is gone before i sell it on.

2czc9xl.jpg
 
Restart your Mac and press Option when the grey screen appears. Then select Recovery Disk.

Open Disk Utility and format the partition with the name you want for Mac OS Journaled. I always use 3 pass for security reasons. It will take about 1:30 hours.

Then close Disk Utility and select Install Mac OS. Choose the partition you just formatted and install from there. This will take about an hour depending on your internet connection speed.
 
ok great. So dont touch the Hitachi drive? What is the disk 1 drive about?

Also, i hear alot of people talk about booting lion from a disc instead of using the reinstall lion osx option on the menu when you reboot. Why is this?
 
circa--survive said:
ok great. So dont touch the Hitachi drive? What is the disk 1 drive about?

Also, i hear alot of people talk about booting lion from a disc instead of using the reinstall lion osx option on the menu when you reboot. Why is this?
Click to expand...

Sorry, never got back to you because it wasn't a quote notification.

You can erase the Hitachi drive itself and that will also erase the partitions on it, in this case "Macintosh HD." You then need to go to the Partition tab, select 1 Partition if that is what you want to do, and format it with a name and type.

I don't use Lion/ML but disk1 looks like your recovery partition. I wouldn't touch that unless you have another way of restoring your computer, and that leads to your next question. People burn Lion to a disk or have it on a USB simply to have physical media to restore. It's more reliable in my opinion, as you can use it as long as you have it in order to recover your system.
 
Dark Void said:
Sorry, never got back to you because it wasn't a quote notification.

You can erase the Hitachi drive itself and that will also erase the partitions on it, in this case "Macintosh HD." You then need to go to the Partition tab, select 1 Partition if that is what you want to do, and format it with a name and type.

I don't use Lion/ML but disk1 looks like your recovery partition. I wouldn't touch that unless you have another way of restoring your computer, and that leads to your next question. People burn Lion to a disk or have it on a USB simply to have physical media to restore. It's more reliable in my opinion, as you can use it as long as you have it in order to recover your system.
Click to expand...

So if i erase the hitachi drive i can just create a partition and name it macintosh hd and im good? I just want to make sure its completely clean.

Last question. If i then install snow leopard as o have the disk for it can i upgrade straight to mountain lion?
 
circa--survive said:
So if i erase the hitachi drive i can just create a partition and name it macintosh hd and im good? I just want to make sure its completely clean.

Last question. If i then install snow leopard as o have the disk for it can i upgrade straight to mountain lion?
Click to expand...

Yep, and I am not sure on upgrading directly to ML from SL. I would assume that you could if you purchased ML regardless of whether or not you purchased Lion.
 
circa--survive said:
So if i erase the hitachi drive i can just create a partition and name it macintosh hd and im good? I just want to make sure its completely clean.

Last question. If i then install snow leopard as o have the disk for it can i upgrade straight to mountain lion?
Click to expand...

Yes and yes.
 
Weaselboy said:
Yes and yes.
Click to expand...

ok new problem, when i try to erase the hitachi drive it won't unmount? i just want to wipe the macintosh hd and the disk 1/mac os base partition which i assume is lion recovery so i can clean install from my snow leopard disk :(
 
circa--survive said:
ok new problem, when i try to erase the hitachi drive it won't unmount? i just want to wipe the macintosh hd and the disk 1/mac os base partition which i assume is lion recovery so i can clean install from my snow leopard disk :(
Click to expand...

Where are you booted from while trying to do this? You need to either boot from the Snow Leopard DVD and run Disk Util from there, or boot from an external USB key with recovery and do it from there. It sounds like you have booted to the internal drive's Recovery HD and you cannot format the drive from there while booted to it.
 
Thanks for answering all these questions, im rubbish at this. Ok that ha worked, last question. do i just format the hitrachi drive as os journaled? ive also read something about a guid? whatever that is?
 
circa--survive said:
Thanks for answering all these questions, im rubbish at this. Ok that ha worked, last question. do i just format the hitrachi drive as os journaled? ive also read something about a guid? whatever that is?
Click to expand...

No sweat. :)

Yep... just pick Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I think it defaults to that? It will make it GUID if you pick Mac OS Extended all on its own.
 
Weaselboy said:
No sweat. :)

Yep... just pick Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I think it defaults to that? It will make it GUID if you pick Mac OS Extended all on its own.
Click to expand...

ive erased the drive and named it hitachi again but its renamed the machintosh hd partition instead :S i assume that means its erased the partition and not the hitachi drive?
 
circa--survive said:
ive erased the drive and named it hitachi again but its renamed the machintosh hd partition instead :S i assume that means its erased the partition and not the hitachi drive?
Click to expand...

That is okay and how it should work. By clicking on Hitachi instead of just the Macintosh HD you made sure it erased the Recovery HD. You are good to go.
 
Weaselboy said:
That is okay and how it should work. By clicking on Hitachi instead of just the Macintosh HD you made sure it erased the Recovery HD. You are good to go.
Click to expand...

Oh great :) that's a relief. Also should i be using zero out data or 7 pass?
 
circa--survive said:
Oh great :) that's a relief. Also should i be using zero out data or 7 pass?
Click to expand...

The lowest zero out option is plenty for you. Even that will take some time, so be prepared for a bit of a wait. It goes through and writes zeroes to very space on the drive... so it takes a while.
 
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