Selling my MacBook Air and What should I do before selling?

Windspeed wrote:

Today just I got an update to 10.6, nut how did you guys get already version 10.7?

Does this mean I am able to erase all safely and than able to sell my system?

I hear also people taking out there HDD, and selling their system than without an HDD, is tghis really necessary?

Version 10.7 is Lion ($30) at Apple.com. If you're going to sell your MBA, there is NO good reason to upgrade to Lion. Also, apparently it's not legal to sell a upgraded Lion computer to another party.

Yes, with 10.6 you can erase all your personal data. You will in effect be putting it back to factory condition. As to taking the SSD drive out of the computer before selling, WHY would you want to do that? First of all, the market for anyone to buy your computer would be VERY limited without the SSD in the computer.

Second, there are some videos on the internet about how to remove the SSD. There are several very tiny screws and then several ribbon cables inside that have to be removed. I for one would NEVER buy a computer such as that mainly because I would not be able to test it before buying.

Re erasing in your previous post, the simple erase does not remove any data just like it doesn't on any IBM type computer. You have to go through the multi-pass procedure to do that where everything gets overwritten either 3 or 7 times. I recently went wiith the 7 pass erase and it took over 10 hours.

Windspeed wrote:

Does anyone know, if its secure to delete forever everything that might be personal on my system to do this with the version 10.5.8 that I have!

In fact I wanted to sell before I buy a new one, is there anyway to do this as smoothly as possible? And where and how should I keep securely all my resources on my system after selling it?

I want to transfer than later all into the new system that I might purchase (Where I sell and where I purchase my new system will be differing locations!)

Yes, if you do the multi-pass erase, your data should be destroyed for all practical purposes.

If you have an external hard drive, you can backup your data with the "Time Machine". If you then later replace your computer with another Apple computer, you can then transfer the data back by plugging the new computer into the same external hard drive.

Hi Macaby,

thank you so much for your support.

In fact I did some research before posting my question - but all I found was rather very conflicting. Ad thats why I felt to post such a question!

- Its been so long ago, how will I know if it was pre-installed with lion or if it was installed after purchase at the store? (is there a way to find that info on my system?)

- if I dont have an external drive is there other reliable ways to transfer the data back to my new system?

- What I care the most is that I can transfer securely all the data on my system to a new system that I might purchase, and that on my old system nothing identifiable is left from me in anyway.

- Are you aware of a very good 'howto" guide to do the proper erase with the multi-pass procedure?

Thank you once again for your practical feedback.

The "erase" procedure is detailed at...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3680

Basically, you boot with the Command-R keys. When the menu comes up, as I remember, you select the bottom option which will take you to the procedure as per the link above. The simple erase will not remove data. All it does is make the area that the data is store available for future storage. To securely erase, you will have to choose either the 3 pass or the 7 pass option. I went with the 7 pass, but it took a long time. Unless you're storing some data that will make you a billionaire or insure that no one will ever be hungry again, the 3 pass should be fine. When that procedure is finish, it will take you back to the previous menu where you can then select to reinstall OS-X.

If you go through that procedure, the computer will then boot up as a new computer, asking for your name and a password. To keep mine generic, I chose "MacBook" as the ID and skipped the password entry. I don't know what my buyer did, but unless he then reinstalled OS X, he was stuck with my "MacBook" user name. I "think" if I hadn't of rebooted after installing OS X, my buyer could have then done all the initall entries himself which would have been good EXCEPT that he wouldn't have bought the computer without seeing it work. A case of ****** if you do and ****** if you don't.

An external hard drive for Time Machine use is very useful to have and can be bought for well less than $100. If you have an old hard drive laying around, you can buy an enclosure for about $20, which makes it then an external drive.

If you don't want to go that route, you can use Apple's built-in Migration Assistant, but you will need both computers (old and new). Or you could transfer data onto a memory stick. However, if you have a lot of photos, music or video, that would fill up several memory sticks. If you have an external DVD writer, I guess you could burn the data (again, probably several DVDs). Lastly, there is the "Cloud", something I'm not sure of.

Hi Macaby,

onece again thank yoru in the name of all who will be using your advise and your support.

I am pretty sure you realize your experience is welcome by many even one person posted "just a question"!

- Cloud was something I wanted to mention but forgot to do so. If cloud works in such a situation as mine, it would be great and very practical having everything so close! As I was considering for sometime to migrate most of my resources to cloud, but still lacking practical experiences and user oriented, functional & value for money cloud services incl. covering all communication divices in inclusive ways.

May I ask, why most experienced windows users advise to remove HDD before selling, is the erase procedure with Mac a completly different from that how data is deleted on a windows system?

For a mac, presently am I able to use a HDD as an external drive that was on a windows system, with a Mac?

Any good howto guide to the procedure of using internal HDD, as an external HDD either with a Mac or Windows laptop?

Thnak you once again in the name of all!

Windspeed wrote:

May I ask, why most experienced windows users advise to remove HDD before selling, is the erase procedure with Mac a completly different from that how data is deleted on a windows system?

For a mac, presently am I able to use a HDD as an external drive that was on a windows system, with a Mac?

Any good howto guide to the procedure of using internal HDD, as an external HDD either with a Mac or Windows laptop?

Thank you for your kind words, but I DON'T consider myself anywhere near the plateau that experts such as Winston Churchill and others here.

That said, I've never heard anyone ever say you should remove a hard drive before selling a computer. From an absolute security concern, it might make sense IF you replaced the hard drive with another one with a working OS. Without a hard drive AND a OS system, you computer would be worth much less than a working computer.

AFAIK, the only reliable way to remove data from a hard drive, be it a SSD or a stardard hard drive, is to write over the sectors several times. Unless you have the "go-to-war" bomb codes, 3 pass sweep will probably be enough. I just did a 7 pass sweep and it took a LONG TIME.

Yes, you can use a external Windows hard drive as an extended OS hard drive. It will have to be formatted in the OS. I am presently using a USB WD Passport 500GB that I store my movies and other data on.

I have a different external hard drive that I used for the OS X Time Machine to backup my MBA. It also contains my backups from my old MBP that I can transfer to my MBA if I need to.l

On my iMac which is running both OS X and Windows7, I have separate backup hard drives, one for each OS. I suppose it's possible to partition an external hard drive to use with both a OS X and a Windows OS. I tried it once and didn't have very good results. Huge external hard drives are so cheap now (less than $100).

As for using an external hard drive with a laptop such as a MBA, all you have to do is "point" to it and you can run programs directly from it or access data directly from it, with a LOSS of speed compared to using the internal SSD.

Apparently you want to sell your MBA. Would you buy an MBA without the SSD in it? Without the OS?

Hi guys,

I am selling of my late 2010 MacBook Air which came originally with Snow Leopard which I have upgraded to Lion. I want to restore it to Snow Leopard. I used the USB stick that came with the MacBook Air, but it kept saying I cannot install Snow Leopard to the SSD.

Anyone can point me to the right steps on how to do this? Also would my data be erased?

Install the stick, reboot your machine holding the "Option" key, select the USB stick for boot, erase and install Snow Leopard.

Follow RRFS's instructions. It sounds like you put the USB stick in and tried to launch the installer while you were running in Lion. Lion won't let you install an older version while it is running. RRFS's instructions have you boot from the USB drive. When you do this, you are actually running off the USB drive (not your internal drive). This will let you install whichever version of OS X you like.