Having issues safely wiping Apple MacBook Pro 17-Inch Core i5 2.53 Mid-2010 hard drive pre sale

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Having issues safely wiping Apple MacBook Pro 17-Inch Core i5 2.53 Mid-2010 hard drive pre sale

Hi there, I'm driving myself mad trying to wipe my old MacBook Pro 17" hard drive pre sale.

It's running OS 10.6.8 and it's too old to go into the recovery mode (cmd+R etc) that 99% of online tutorials tell me to.

To further complicate matters, I don't have the original Snow Leopard install disks. But I do have Snow Leopard Install Mac OSX on a USB installer drive.

When I restart the computer holding down the 'alt' key, the option to install from the USB installer presents itself alongside the HD icon - but when I select the 'USB Mac OS X Install DVD' (USB) either nothing happens or I get the following message:

"Mac OS X Install DVD" can't be used because it is not formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Use disk utility to enable journaling or reformat the disk.

Now I know for a fact the USB stick was erased, partitioned and restored in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). So - a few questions:

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Do I need to clean install Snow Leopard to safely wipe my hard drive pre sale?

Could I clean install from a High Sierra USB installer?

Any help or advise hugely, hugely appreciated.

Nick

MacBook Pro

Posted on Apr 7, 2020 3:06 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

60,200 points

Apr 7, 2020 11:28 AM in response to nmhh

If the laptop is able to boot from macOS 10.6 from the internal drive, then why not upgrade to macOS 10.11, then perform a second upgrade to macOS 10.13. That way you will now have access to Internet Recovery Mode which should simplify your issues and provide you with two versions of macOS to use for reinstall. It is the long way to get there, but it should work. You could try upgrading directly to 10.13, but sometimes 10.11 is required first with some systems.

FYI, you can also create a bootable macOS USB installer using these instructions:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,200 points

Apr 7, 2020 4:28 PM in response to nmhh

nmhh wrote:

Really? Why can’t it clean install from the USB?

best. N

You can, but it seems something is wrong with your USB installer. Without knowing how the SL USB installer was created I cannot, but maybe it was made incorrectly or the what you downloaded is bad. Apple never released SL in .iso or .dmg form so you could have a corrupt installer at best or an installer filled with malware.

Or It could be just a bad or incompatible USB stick. Macs are very picky about the USB sticks used for booting so you can try using another brand of USB stick.

Unless of course the error message is because you selected the USB stick as the destination for the macOS install. You cannot install to the USB installer drive.

The options I suggested earlier should provide you with a way to accomplish your task assuming you have at least one Mac which can download and create the necessary USB installer for 10.11 or 10.13.

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