About to sell my macbook, how to wipe hard drive clean

I think your best bet would be to reinstall the OS on the MacBook. That would allow everything to be set back to new condition. Be sure to pass on any software disks for your MacBook to the new owner as they will need them. This is the easiest method and allows the new owner to set everything up like they want.

Prior t selling the computer and before installing the OS, I would suggest you erase the HHD and zero out the HDD. Boot up with the OS (or install) CD and click onto disc utilities. Select erase and then select the way you wish to erase. Writing zeroes to the disc is usually sufficient. This would prevent others from possibly retrieving any personal information from you HDD. Erasing only erases the file info, but not the whole file.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Re-install Mac OS (don't choose an option that keeps the old files, wipe it clean!)
2. After re-installing, open Disk Utility, and run the Erase Free Space utility on your newly formatted drive. This will ensure that your old files can't be recovered.

If you want your personal data off of your Macbook, simply doing step one will NOT be enough!!! Erasing and deleting are two different things. (Step one deletes, step 2 erases.)

Also, what chipperz posted should work.

Message was edited by: musicmannn

What you can do is archive and install, that'll keep your data in a folder which you can transfer to the new install. Alternatively, you could use Time Machine to backup, then selectively restore what you want. Another option is to use the Migration Assistant.

With regard to your webcam, I think it's possible that an update to Adobe Flash changed your privacy settings to prevent the website from accessing your webcam. Try right clicking in the Flash applet, going to Settings, and check that allow Webcam use is checked.

Re-installing the Mac OS will not delete all of your data (It will delete some of it). Much of the free space on your hard drive will contain old data that could be recovered.

There are several hard drive utilitys sold that will wipe your hard drive, by writing zeros and ones randomly or using other methods to write over your old data.

I am readying my MacBook to sell on eBay. I reinstalled the original OS, but it immediately takes me through the registration set up. Is there a way to provide the computer so that when the new owner turns it on it takes them through the original Welcome screen, taking their pertinent data, and naming the hard drive after them (instead of me)?

This might be what you're looking for:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20010827120222505