User profile for user: DJMc
DJMc Author
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Will resetting old macbook with recovery really erase everything

Wife received her old MacBook in the mail the other day-it had been loaned to her nephew years ago for when schools were being closed down. Wife kept her administrative ownership, but thankfully she had signed out of her apple account and had erased all of her stuff, but she did share the admin password so nephew could add his name as user and download/install any app he needed. When we powered on the MacBook, we saw 2 other user names: nephew's oldest, high school brother and an unknown female name. Wife called her sister to discover the original intended user of the MacBook stopped needing it last year and the high schooler just took it. The reason it had taken so long to arrive here was due to the fact the high schooler and his friend were picked up by the cops and they had possession of the MacBook for many, many months. Morons never thought to erase their user names, etc. before sending it back. Needless to say, we want to sterilize the outside and inside of the MacBook before we donate it to local library. Will using the recovery mode truly remove all kinds of stuff that may be hidden on the HDD. Any additional steps to take to really wipe it clean?

Thanks in advance

MacBook

Posted on Jun 28, 2022 4:46 PM

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
68,858 points

Posted on Jun 29, 2022 4:56 PM

Do you have Filevault enabled on this laptop? If so, then when you go to erase the drive make sure to erase the whole physical drive which will also destroy the encryption key used by Filevault (you do not need to unlock Filevault when erasing the whole physical drive). If you are installing macOS 10.6 to 10.10, then instead of "erasing" the drive you will want to partition & format the whole physical drive. The drive needs to have a GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) file system.


If Filevault is not currently enabled, then I suggest enabling it and make sure the encryption process finishes (may take days depending on the size & health of the hard drive).


If the laptop uses a hard drive and does not have Filevault enabled, then all your personal data is possibly still accessible if someone decides to go looking with a data recovery app unless you erase the drive with a secure erase which writes zeroes to the whole hard drive. Later versions of macOS removed this option from Disk Utility. For older versions of macOS you may be able to find the Secure Erase option in Disk Utility which may be accessed by the "Advanced" or maybe a "Security" button.


If the laptop uses an SSD, then just follow the instructions in the Apple article @tjk linked making sure to follow the "erase drive" option in one of the linked articles.


The "erase" option in Disk Utility works differently when it is used on a hard drive versus an SSD since an SSD works differently.


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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
68,858 points

Jun 29, 2022 4:56 PM in response to DJMc

Do you have Filevault enabled on this laptop? If so, then when you go to erase the drive make sure to erase the whole physical drive which will also destroy the encryption key used by Filevault (you do not need to unlock Filevault when erasing the whole physical drive). If you are installing macOS 10.6 to 10.10, then instead of "erasing" the drive you will want to partition & format the whole physical drive. The drive needs to have a GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled) file system.


If Filevault is not currently enabled, then I suggest enabling it and make sure the encryption process finishes (may take days depending on the size & health of the hard drive).


If the laptop uses a hard drive and does not have Filevault enabled, then all your personal data is possibly still accessible if someone decides to go looking with a data recovery app unless you erase the drive with a secure erase which writes zeroes to the whole hard drive. Later versions of macOS removed this option from Disk Utility. For older versions of macOS you may be able to find the Secure Erase option in Disk Utility which may be accessed by the "Advanced" or maybe a "Security" button.


If the laptop uses an SSD, then just follow the instructions in the Apple article @tjk linked making sure to follow the "erase drive" option in one of the linked articles.


The "erase" option in Disk Utility works differently when it is used on a hard drive versus an SSD since an SSD works differently.


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Will resetting old macbook with recovery really erase everything

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