Resolved (SOLVED!) Need advice on preparing Mac for sale

[Diogones]

I have a friend who is going to be selling his 05' Mac Mini with OS X 10.4 installed, and I'm helping him optimize it before it is sold. Since neither me nor him has a Tiger or Leopard retail or OEM disc, could I simply delete his old account, create a new one, and optimize the OS that way? This would include removing junk files, securely deleting the empty space created by his old files, and uninstalling any programs unnecessary to the buyer.

I know there is no substitute for a fresh, clean install, but since that isn't possible at the moment, would my optimization method work as a viable substitute?

 

[GGJstudios]

Since neither me nor him has a Tiger or Leopard retail or OEM disc

Those discs are important to keep and he'll want to have them. You can order replacement discs by calling Apple.

Mac 101: Preparing your old Mac for sale or recycling

 

[Diogones]

Thanks for your prompt reply GGJ! Buying the discs is certainly an option, and we may just do that. Assuming that he didn't want to order new replacement discs, would it be possible to have an almost like-new setup by following the steps I outlined in my first post?

 

[DockMac]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I think your outline is the second best alternative to a fresh install.

BTW, secure deleting takes forever! Multiply forever by the number of passes you do!

 

[Diogones]

Thanks for the confirmation DockMac, and right you are: secure erase does take a long time! Thankfully, deleting the old account and creating a new one should help, so I shouldn't have to do more than maybe one pass with the secure erase. After all, my friend didn't use the Mac for anything except pictures and music, so there isn't any commercial or private info on the drive, and whoever we sell it to will probably just be happy they got the computer, rather than worrying about what potential data they can find and how to recover it.