Wiping the HD

[Kristofer]

Hi.

I have tried to follow directions to wipe my Macbook clean, but the "erase" options in disc utility are greyed out. I want to sell my macbook but obviously not with my stuff still on it. How can I get rid of everything and start over?

I tried putting my OSX disc in but I get a message saying it can't install on this mac. I guess maybe the machine is outdated?? Right now I'm running version 10.4.11 but the one I have on my newer mac is 10.5.4... I don't have any other macosx discs. Why won't 10.5.4 install on this one?

thanks for any and all help.

 

[Sky Blue]

You can't erase the drive whilst you're booted from it, obviously. You'll need to boot from the original OS X discs that came with the computer or a retail 10.5 disc.

 

[Kristofer]

You can't erase the drive whilst you're booted from it, obviously. You'll need to boot from the original OS X discs that came with the computer or a retail 10.5 disc.

good point.

i don't have any other osx disc aside from 10.5...so if i boot from that (even though I can't install it), can I still access disc utility through 10.5 in order to erase the HD?

Then what? I can't install 10.5 on here so it will just have no operating system?

 

[upaymeifixit]

Do you have another mac?

If you have another Mac you might be able to wipe the drive using "target disc mode" from your other mac. But yes, you would be selling a laptop without an OS installed.