Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I just bought a new 2012 MacBookPro and want to give my old 2009 one that still works perfectly to my daughter. How do I erase all of my personal and financial information off the old and/or restore the Mac to its original state for her?
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), curser operating on its own
The best way would be to boot from the original installer disc and use Disk Utility to erase the drive, writing zeros once. Next, re-install the operating system, do the free updates, then give her the computer and original discs.
The best way would be to boot from the original installer disc and use Disk Utility to erase the drive, writing zeros once. Next, re-install the operating system, do the free updates, then give her the computer and original discs.
Clicky click--—> Erasing disks securely
Start up from your install disc, go to Disk Utility and select the disk and click erase - to securely erase data click Security Options and Erase Free Space which will entirely wipe your disk, overwriting it with zeros so that no data is recoverable.
Clicky click-—> Restoring your computer’s software
Your macbook 2009 came with 2 disks. One is the applications disk and the other is the mac osx disk. Place the mac osx disk into the optical drive. Power off the computer. Turn the computer back on. Right after you press the power button to turn the computer on, press and continue to hold down the "c" key. Continue holding down the "c" key until the grey screen appears with the apple logo an spinning wheel (gear), then let go of the "c" key. The computer will boot from the installation disk. When promted choose a language. Click(press) the right arrow key. Click the utilities menu button, and choose disk utility. Select the drive you wish to erase; usualy named "macintosh hd". Click the erase tab. Then click on the "security options..." button. Choose the amount of times you want disk utility to overwrite your information. You can erase the drive without choosing security options, but if the computer falls into the wrong hands your financial data could possibly be recovered. Overwriting the disk as part of a secure delete of the drive may take a long time depending on the size of the drive (GB) and the amount of actual data there is on the drive.
BabyBoomer's directions do not wipe your data unless you have trashed it first. The ones I gave you erase everything, including hidden files you may not remember existed.
What if I don't have the original Discs that the Mac came with?
JPRice333 wrote:
What if I don't have the original Discs that the Mac came with?
This is a old thread so follow this link here
How do I securely delete data from the machine?
If you have 10.7 or 10.8 on the machine you don't need disks. Just hold command r and boot from the Recovery Partition.
If your machine originally came with 10.6.2 or earlier on the machine, you can call Apple for a copy of the 10.6.3 retail disks.
If your machine originally came with 10.6.3 or later, then you still need to call Apple, but order the machine specific versions of the disks instead.
How do I wipe my mac clean of all personal and financial info?
