giving my macbook pro away...

Your best bet is to Wipe the drive and reinstall the OS. When it first boots use her info while setting it up. The only problem with that is getting those App's that you think she'll like back on it. For that you would need to login to the Mac App store with your Apple ID. Not sure if that will set the Apple ID on the computer to your account and or if she can change it afterwards.

Post back if you want details on how to wipe the drive and reinstall.

susan-kelly wrote:

Well like I said I need it easy, wipe the drive on her white plastic thing I think is a must its so junked up. Really I've used my Macbook pro so little, I'm not sure if that isn't overkill. I just checked there are no documents on it, no pictures, only 5 saved websites. But just my info I put in it when I first turned it on.

It's not a matter of not having my daughter use it she has all my credit card numbers and passwords to virtually everything but just a fear if it gets "lost".

Anyhow I don't exactly know HOW to wipe a drive? Is it easy?

Susan

What OSX system is on the white one?

Pete

The easiest thing to do is create an account for her on the machine.. go to Systems Preferences/User & Groups via "+" button in the window to do this.. be sure to give her admin rights when you do.. then delete your account. You may want to create a separate "Admin" account just in case she loses her account password. This saved my son some trouble in school when he "changed" his computer passwrod then promptly "forgot it".

Suggest you back-up all your stuff onto another drive before you give it to her. If you want you can then run Disk Utility and then select "Erase" tab, then press the "Erase Free Space" button. You can also "reset" and wiping out all Safari user preferences while it's open by going to Safari/Safari Preferences/Safari Reset.

You can take the iPhoto and iTunes libraries from her machine and drag and drop them into the Pictures and Music folders on the new machine. Might be a good idea to be sure you have the same versions of iPhoto and iTunes on both machines before you do this though.. just to avoid any potential incompatibilities of the libraries.. they shodl readjust but just to be careful.

Yes, it's that easy.

You might want to get her iCloud and iTunes Match to store her stuff in the cloud.

Deleting yourself as an Admin will erase all of your info, key chain, passwords, etc.

When your daughter gets the MacBook Pro, she can then create an admin account with the same login name and password that she is using on her MacBook. She can migrate all of her apps, documents, and setting by rebooting her MacBook while holding the T key, which puts her MacBook into Target Disk Mode. Her MacBook will then act like an external hard drive.

She should connect the two computers via the fastest type of connections that they have. If her MacBook has FireWire 400, and your MacBook Pro has FireWire 800, you can get a cable with an FW400 connector at one end and an FW800 connector at the other end. Or, if they both have FW800, you can get an FW800 cable.

Once they are connected, and the MacBook has been rebooted while holding the T key, she can use the Migration Assistant in the Applications Folder > Utilities Folder. And her documents, settings, and all apps from both computers will be in the MacBook Pro.

Once the transfer is done, the MacBook should be shut down before the cable is disconnected. The MacBook Pro can stay booted up.

If your daughter is near an Apple store, I am sure that they can help with this.

Here is info about Target Disk Mode:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

FireWire 400 to 800 cable (get a cheap one):

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=firewire%20400%20800%20cable&_sop=15

FireWire 800 cable (get a cheap one:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/?_nkw=firewire%20800%20cable

Using the external hard drive that you have makes things easier than needing to get the two Macs in the same place. I assume that your external HD connects by USB, which is fine but slower than FireWire.

I recommend the following:

1. Backup the MacBook to the external HD through Time Machine.

2. On the MacBook Pro, have your daughter create a new Admin account with the same user name and password as her MacBook. When that has been done, she can log into that account and delete your account which deletes all of your personal info, but leaves the apps in place.

3. While she is logged in to her account in the MacBook Pro, she should connect the external drive, and use Migration Assistant in the MacBoom Pro to bring everything from the Time Machine backup on the external HD to her account on the MacBook Pro, as shown here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/27921.html

To transfer information from a Time Machine backup or other disk:

Open Migration Assistant (located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder), and then follow the onscreen instructions.

When you’re asked how you want to transfer your information, select the “From a Time Machine backup or other disk” button.

When you’re asked to select a disk, select the disk from which you want to transfer information.

Based on my last reply having been marked "Solved my question," I'm really glad that you were able to get the job done!