My old MacBook will not erase...I'm going to give it away...but having problems

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Legauche1944 Author

Level 1

8 points

My old MacBook will not erase...I'm going to give it away...but having problems

I restart with Command-R held down.
Then log-in.
Then go to Disk Utility.
I select the Mac HD in left column
I select Erase from top menu bar.
No option is available to choose from, greyed-out
The only option is "Erase Free Space"...not "Erase"

I've tried this 4 times. I've also tried Command-Option-P-R held down. No results.

I might be doing something wrong but would appreciate any advice..

Macbook is old, running OS 10.6

Posted on Dec 15, 2020 3:34 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

sberman

Level 10

263,895 points

Dec 15, 2020 6:33 PM in response to Legauche1944

Legauche1944 wrote:

Macbook is old, running OS 10.6

"Old" is an understatement. OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard, was released by Apple in 2009!

This version of OS X is so old, the instructions you followed above not only don't apply, but Snow Leopard is too old to even include exception instructions in the article describing how to erase your Mac.

Snow Leopard came with a bootable installer. Use that to erase your device.

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Answer 2

sberman

Level 10

263,895 points

Dec 15, 2020 6:58 PM in response to Legauche1944

That installer was included in the box with Macs that were sold with Snow Leopard back in the day. I know they were sold for a while in Apple Stores. Now I would guess you would have to find one in an antique store.

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