So I want to wipe my MacBook

[Arien157]

My MacBook has been ridiculously slow lately. So I bought a external hard drive and I want to completely delete everything off of it, and then only out certain things back on it. I want my music and a few programs back on it and then I want to keep everything else on the hard drive. How would I go about doing this?

 

[Apple fanboy]

My MacBook has been ridiculously slow lately. So I bought a external hard drive and I want to completely delete everything off of it, and then only out certain things back on it. I want my music and a few programs back on it and then I want to keep everything else on the hard drive. How would I go about doing this?

Try the Mac Basics section, rather than Community Discussion. You will probably get more responses.

 

[mrsir2009]

My MacBook has been ridiculously slow lately. So I bought a external hard drive and I want to completely delete everything off of it, and then only out certain things back on it. I want my music and a few programs back on it and then I want to keep everything else on the hard drive. How would I go about doing this?

Is your MacBook the older kind that has install DVDs (those grey disks that come with the computer)? If so you can just do a fresh install from the disk after you've backed up all the stuff you want to keep onto the external hard drive, then copy back over the things you want on your MacBook.

 

[citizenzen]

Depends on the system. Mountain Lion, Lion and Mavericks provide a recovery partition that allows you to reformat your drive with Disk Utility and reinstall your system software.

http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/

Very handy. No install disks necessary.