How to Safely Erase HD before Selling?

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Level 2

171 points

How to Safely Erase HD before Selling?

Hi and tnxs for reading.

Even if I don't have this urgent need at the moment, I am wondering if, in case I want to sell my MacBook Pro with Lion Mountain and safely erase all the confidential data I have in my HD, I can do it with Utility Disk or CMD-R on startup without having to install third party softwares or use special procedures.

On top of this, since I bought my MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard and I recently upgraded to Mountain Lion, I am wondering if, by erasing it with a safe procedure I will keep Mountain Lion in or will have to reinstall Snow Leopard with my DVD.

Tnxs

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Oct 28, 2012 4:03 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

nick101

Level 5

5,132 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:15 AM in response to Jet787

Boot from a startup disk, and use Disk Utlity to Erase the drive using the security options that will overwrite everything.

You should be able to resintall Mountain Lion afterwards.

In fact, I would Google how to make a ML startup disk, and use that

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Answer 2

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:16 AM in response to Jet787

1. Press Command and R keys on boot, open Disk Utility and erase the drive.

2. You must reinstall Snow Leopard because you purchased Mountain Lion with your Apple ID and only you can use Mountain Lion. The owner has to purchase OS X Mountain Lion with his/her Apple ID

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Answer 3

nick101

Level 5

5,132 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:17 AM in response to mende1

2. You must reinstall Snow Leopard because you purchased Mountain Lion with your Apple ID and only you can use Mountain Lion. The owner has to purchase OS X Mountain Lion with his/her Apple ID

Good point - forgot that

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Answer 4

b j t

Level 4

3,698 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:18 AM in response to Jet787

These two articles have some good info: http://gigaom.com/apple/mac-101-deleting-files-and-erasing-drives/, http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/securely-wipe-hard-drive-mac-os/.

There are quite a few articles that come up when you search for "secure erase mac hard drive" in Google.

I hope this helps.

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Answer 5

Jet787 Author

Level 2

171 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:27 AM in response to mende1

thanks for the prompt replies. I am aware I purchased mountain Lion with my Apple ID but I purchased my MacBook pro with my Apple Account aswell and in my new MacBookPro that I will go to buy there will be a Mountain Lion installed that i will pay with the purchase of the new Mac.

So, any chance to leave my Mountain Lion to the person that will buy my mac, together with the hardware, according to the same philosophy?

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Answer 6

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:30 AM in response to Jet787

Also, you have to unregister your computer with your Apple account > http://supportprofile.apple.com You can't transfer OS X or apps purchased with your Apple ID to another Apple ID, so you have to reinstall Snow Leopard, that came with DVDs with your Mac to reinstall it without using your Apple account

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Answer 7

Jet787 Author

Level 2

171 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:39 AM in response to mende1

ok. That page is not working at the moment.

However, after having use Utility Disk, I will still have a partition on my HD with Mountain Lion since it is now installed as a Recovery Disk on my HD...

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Answer 8

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:41 AM in response to Jet787

When you boot from the Mac OS X DVD, you have to erase the whole hard disk, not only Macintosh HD

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Answer 9

Jet787 Author

Level 2

171 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:47 AM in response to mende1

Tnxs, but what is the issue if I only erase Macintosh HD and keep Mountain Lion Recovery Partition? I see there are a lot of second hand Macbook pro available online which were purchased with mac os 10.6 and were upgraded to Lion or Mountain lion and are sold with the partition in order to have the new operating system available. Would be an issue with my AppleId then?

Finally, if I decide to erase everything with Snow leopard as you say, can you confirm that for the new customer to have Mountain Lion it will be enough to 1) reinstall snow leopard, 2) upgrade for free to 10.6.8 and finally 3) buy Moutain Lion from the AppleStore?

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Answer 10

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:51 AM in response to Jet787

1. If you keep Mountain Lion and the owner wants to reinstall OS X Mountain Lion, she/he won't be able to reinstall because the Mac will ask for your Apple ID, so you should reinstall Snow Leopard.

2. When Mac OS X Snow Leopard installation finishes, turn off your Mac and give the Mac to the new owner. When she/he starts the Mac, she/he will see the Setup Assistant to set up the Mac

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Answer 11

Jet787 Author

Level 2

171 points

Oct 28, 2012 4:54 AM in response to mende1

ok, but if the owner ask me how much he/she has to pay and what is the procedure to have mountain lion, is it correct to tell that he/she should be able to to it by upgrading for free to the last Snow leopard version and then buy Mountain Lion without having to upgrade to Lion first?

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Answer 12

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Oct 28, 2012 5:03 AM in response to Jet787

The owner always has to update to the latest version on  > Software Update. To purchase Mountain Lion > http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/

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Answer 13

Jet787 Author

Level 2

171 points

Oct 28, 2012 5:25 AM in response to mende1

Thank You.

have a nice day 😉

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Answer 14

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Oct 28, 2012 5:31 AM in response to Jet787

You're welcome

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Answer 15

May 8, 2014 12:55 PM in response to mende1

what do you do if "erase" process locks up before finishing. after 30 hrs I hit the skip button, but it's still locked up. If I eject a warning that the hard drive could be damaged appears. Should I just end the process and try to start over?

thanks,

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