I'm thinking about selling my 2010 Macbook Air in the next few days before WWDC. It came with Snow Leopard but I upgraded to Lion through the App Store. I'm not entirely new to mac and know how to do most basic stuff, but I would like you guys to help me with reinstalling Lion (I don't need to install Snow Leopard again, do I?) and securely erasing my ssd before putting it up for sale. I don't need a very detailed description, just a step by step guide or something about how to do it in the right order.
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Steps to reinstall Lion and do secure erase
- Thread starter Ztormie
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I've never done this before either but what I'm doing right now is:
Boot up your Mac and hold the option button while it's starting up. Then pick Lion recovery I think it was called and follow the steps. I'm not sure if this erases everything but I will find out in 14mins when Lion is done downloading and when it's done installing it.
Edit: you should probably erase your SSD using the disk utility which is also in the main menu when you boot up while holding the option button.
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If you're on Snow Leopard or earlier:
If you're on Lion or later:
If you got Lion via the Mac App Store then it is connected to your AppleID. If you want to sell the Mac it would be better to reinstall it with the OS X version that came with it: Snow Leopard. Prevents problems with your license and license issues for the buyer.