Hello tombell,
It sounds like you're encountering difficulties performing a clean wipe and reinstall of macOS on the MacBook. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to accomplish this:
1. Backup Important Data: Before proceeding with a clean wipe and reinstall, make sure to back up any important data on the MacBook to prevent data loss.
2. Boot into Recovery Mode: Restart the MacBook, and as soon as it restarts, press and hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys simultaneously until you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe. This will boot the MacBook into macOS Recovery Mode.
3. Erase the Hard Drive: In macOS Recovery Mode, select "Disk Utility" from the Utilities menu and click "Continue." In Disk Utility, select your Mac's hard drive (usually named "Macintosh HD" or similar) from the list of drives on the left. Click on the "Erase" tab, choose the appropriate format (usually "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"), and then click "Erase." Confirm the erasure.
4. Reinstall macOS: After erasing the hard drive, close Disk Utility to return to the main macOS Recovery Mode menu. Select "Reinstall macOS" or "Reinstall OS X" and follow the on-screen instructions to download and reinstall the macOS version that originally came with your MacBook. If you're using a Snow Leopard install CD, insert the CD, restart the MacBook, and hold down the Option (⌥) key while it restarts to boot from the CD. Then, follow the on-screen instructions to perform the installation.
5. Set up macOS: After the macOS installation is complete, follow the on-screen prompts to set up macOS, including creating a user account and configuring system preferences.
Performing these steps should result in a clean wipe and reinstall of macOS on the MacBook, resolving any issues with secure connection errors in Safari and time-ahead errors in Google Chrome. If you continue to encounter issues after reinstalling macOS, it may indicate hardware problems or other underlying issues that require further troubleshooting.
