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

I'm about to sell my macbook (I've upgraded) , how would I wipe the hard drive, the whole computer for that matter, clean of all websites I've visited, passwords etc?
Anything else you can suggest? Like clear all bookmarks,and in Safari pull down menu, I guess 'reset safari' and 'empty cache' too, etc?
And in Accounts under System preferences can I change the name? I see I can change the password, sorry I'm not too computer proficient...I hate to miss something.
Thanks all

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

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How to wipe hard drive clean

I down loaded maverick and I choose to make random passwords and I didn't save them now I have issues with the key chains how do I start over I have older back ups on hard drive

I still have admin control, keychain pops up a lot and iTunes pop up and I just drag it out the way I should of checked all one password and not generated passwords

How wipe hard drive clean without a disk and reinstall OS?

Running a 15" Mid 2010, OS 10.8.3; after migrating Profile to new MacBook want to wipe hard drive clean & reinstall Mountain Lion 10.8.3 in order to give to daughter as a "new" computer. All I can find in archived discussions is how to do it w/ a disk.

Yes I would.
The iLife Apps, "i" Photo, Movie and Garageband (And "i" DVD and WEB if you Mac came with Snow Leopard originally), are not included with the Operating system. They are separate applications that you need to either download from the Mac App Store, from your Purchases area once you have logged into the MAS with the Apple ID you used to register that Mac with, or from the second System Reinstall Disc, the Applications disc, that came with your Mac if it originally came with Snow Leopard.
So I read you are running a Mid 2010 MBP. In that case you would need to use the second Original System Disc to reinstall the iLife Applications.
That may be a problem for you as the iLife apps that came with that system are 3 years old and may not want to install on Mt Lion 10.8.3.
If you run into problems installing them from that second system disc you may have to start off by first reinstalling Snow Leopard and then the iLife Apps and Then Upgrade to Mt Lion. Making sure after installing Snow Leopard and the iLife Apps you update everything through Software Update before you do the Mt Lion upgrade.
Sorry about the hassle but blame Apple for that.
Hopefully you have the Original system discs but if you don't then you can order a replacement set from Apple for a small charge.
Good Luck & Best Wishes.

How to wipe hard drive bc selling computer and want all passwords/personal info gone? etc

how to wipe hard drive bc selling computer and want all passwords/personal info gone?

You need to boot the computer from another source, e.g. a CD or an external drive. Then run Disk Utility, select the drive you want cleaned up, and run Erase. Note the security options: "write zeroes" will erase the drive completely.

Purchase Adobe Acrobat XI, had to wipe hard drive clean & start over, need to reload it. Can u Help ?

Purchase Adobe Acrobat XI, had to wipe hard drive clean & start over, need to reload it..Can u Help ?

Hi greg v.p44270855,
We would love to help. What part are you having trouble with? For starters, please make sure that you're logged in as an administrator, and temporarily disable any antivirus software. If you don't have the Acrobat installer, you can download Acrobat from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat.html.
If you're running into a particular problem with the installation, please provide some specifics about the problem (error messages, operating system and version, and so so).
Best,
Sara

Wipe hard drive clean as part of maintenance?

A friend recommended that I completely wipe my hard drive clean and reinstall the OS and all programs from scratch as a way to maintain a smooth running machine. My MacBook Pro is 2007 and gets used pretty hard. I regularly move files to an external HD in order to keep space free for operation. It sometimes gets sluggish but i assume that's a symptom of running too many heavy programs at once (I sometimes run Windows on VM Ware while using Photoshop and/or Illustrator with the usual iTunes and a web browser).
Is this a necessary or advisable form of maintenance?
thanks in advance for advice!

No. That is not maintenance. This is maintenance:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.1 or higher are Intel Mac compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. Versions 1.5.1 or later are Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts had been significantly reduced in Tiger and Leopard. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc. Other utilities are also available such as Onyx, Leopard Cache Cleaner, CockTail, and Xupport, for example.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack (not compatible with Snow Leopard.) If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack is not compatible with Snow Leopard.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
9. SilverKeeper 2.0 (Freeware)
10. MimMac (Commercial)
11. Tri-Backup (Commercial)
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.
Find a friend who actually knows what he/she is talking about.

Wipe Hard Drive clean install of Window Server

What is the best way to wipe Hard Drive? Save a partition for later use and use remaining partition to install Sever OS, save to external drive(to use later) and wipe completely(cleanest install, I believe), complete wipe completely not worrying about
saving anything, or suggestions?
NOTE; The machine has never been turned on, still in the box. Hardware goes above and beyond Min. Requirements for software.
Which is the best way to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Evaluation download - ISO image? Azure?
How to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials from ISO image- Download and burn to DVD, Save to USB or to actual machine?
How to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials from Azure? (Don't have Azure account)
I need to have it completed ASAP so I can install Accounting/PM database software. Need it operational Monday if all possible. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Woodrow

There are a lot of embedded questions here, I'll try to hit them all:
1) If you're reinstalling on the same partition, you do not need to be too crazy in how it gets formatted. There's no performance gain to using BCWipe or anything. When you format, you're just erasing the table of contents, then overwriting the
actual data later on anyway. Just keep it simple.
2) If you want to save the data, just copy it somewhere else before you delete anything. If you're not concerned about the data, don't worry about it, just go back to answer #1.
3) You can download the Evaluation OS from the MS website. You cannot turn an eval copy into a full install without reinstalling, so are you sure that is what you want? You'll end up test building, then when you like it, you'll have to do it
all over again.
4) ISO to DVD or USB: Doesn't matter how you end up installing it. Today's machines can usually support any install media. Some ways are faster, but you're only talking about saving minutes. What does it really matter?
- Chris Ream -
**Remember, if you find a post that is helpful, or is the answer, please mark it appropriately.**

How to wipe hard drive to sell without disks

I am selling my 13" macbook pro (anyone interested?)
I need to wipe or restore my hard drive to protect my information.
What is the best way to do this without having to purchase the disks?
Thanks!

If your system shipped with installation discs, you're just going to have to call Apple and, with your serial number handy, order a set of discs. The charge is minimal ($20, I think, plus tax and shipping). It is the only way that you're going to be able to do a complete factory reset and it would be most unfair not to supply your buyer with the discs, should he/she need them.
See Thomas Reed's How to prepare your Mac for sale.
Good luck,
Clinton

How to I go about backing up my macbook on my External Hard Drive?

Hi, I'm really not computer savvy and i was hoping i could ask you for the best way to backup my air using my 1TB external hard drive?
I wanted to have space for time machine backups as well as space so i could manually backup (archive) certain documents, videos etc.
While I was reading, I understood that to have time machine backups, as well as manually archive data, I need to partition my hard drive. I was hoping i could partition one half to work on pc computers (and my mac) and the other to work on my mac for TM backups.
My question about partitioning is:
1) If I split my HD into 2 (one for TM and one for manual backups that work on a PC) can I still access my archive section on a mac or will it be unreadable to a mac computer, and only readable to a pc? -- what I mean is, if I partition one half to work on a pc, can I still use to in the case of a HD failure on my MacBook air; to have my important files restored? Can I still access the files i put in the pc useable archive section on my, or another, mac or is it now only readable on a pc?
2) Or will I need to partition my hard drive into 3 segments. 1) For TM, 2) for data to be accessible on a PC, and 3) one for archived data to be readable on macs. So essentially I’ll have duplicate files on both the pc and mac archived segments. Is this necessary? Or is there a better way?
I wanted to have time machine backups and a manual archive section on my external; although, i also wanted to be able to access files on my archive section at school for presentation and the like...be it a mac or a pc. I wanted to be able to access those files on either my or another mac and for school on a pc.
Any help would be greatly appreciated...I apologize if you couldn't understand my intentions; I’m not good with all this techy stuff so please bare with me!
Thanks!

#1 is a very bad idea because it creates a bad choke point for serious data loss on ONE external hard drive.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.
#2. Same reason.
2 hard drives MINIMUM, one for TM backups, and a second for data redundancy/ archives. (preferable a 3rd HD clone as well).
Hard drives are cheaper than dirt, you must have one external, and if you cherish you data you NEED a minimum of two
You can have your archiving HD partitioned in Exfat for file transfers between Mac and PC
For data access on your PC, have a HD formatted for ExFat for file transfers between Mac and PC, however such a format will not work with time machine which needs to be in Mac OSX extended journaled.
see here
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

How To Wipe Hard Drive and Install Mavricks.

Hello,
So I want to erase my hard drive completely and install mavricks back on to it. From reading other articals some said that if your computer originaly came with Mountain Lion (mine did) that you DON'T need a install disk. So now im lost in the confusion. What I want to know is how to completely Erase The HD and istall Mountain Lion Again. The way Apple told me to do it was after I click erase on the HD (throught DU) a window would pop up and ask if I want to reinstall Mountain Lion. Is that true?
(One more questing aside from the topic is, can you install a OS from Flash Drive.)
Thanks

Apple explains how to do it in:
OS X Mavericks: Erase and reinstall OS X, the article is located at http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14243

How to wipe hard drive and keep OS?

Hi everyone...
I have a Powerbook G4 12" that was loaned to me. I'd like to wipe the harddrive to "out of the box" condition and keep OS X. I do NOT have the original disks that came with the laptop.
Since I'm a noob to Mac, what's the best way to format and/or wipe the drive of all the previous users junk and start over without bricking the laptop (since I don't have the original cd's)??
Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions!!
Jim

Jim:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Follow the procedure outlined in Niel's article Making the Setup Assistant Reappear.
cornelius

I have a virus. I would like to wipe hard drive clean and re-boot osx. how do I do that?

help?

Well, if you want to erase and install here's how it is done:
Install or Reinstall Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
      the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.

Wipe hard drive clean

I want to wipe clean my hard drive on my hp office jet pro 8500 so I can recycle it

Hi,
To wipe out the fax memory , personal info, and wifi settings from the device please perform a factory reset.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01618201&tmp_task=solveCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&la...
section 6 covers a restore factory defaults
Solution six: Perform a partial resetUse the following steps to reset the product.
Press the Power button () to turn on the product.
Touch the Setup icon ()
Scroll to and touch Tools.
Scroll to and touch Restore Factory Defaults. A Defaults Restored message displays.
Press the Cancel button to return to the main menu.
-Goes211
Though I work for HP, My posts express MY opinion, and not those of HP.
"Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?" - Nigel Tufnel

Wipe Hard Drive/Fried Logic Board

How do I wipe Hard Drive clean when G4 Powerbook will not start up due to fried logic board? I can wait 3 weeks, and One to One will tell me at Apple...lol...

Or you can get this low-cost adapter:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/U2NV2SPATA/
and not need a case. I can't begin to tell how many times this gadget has made an other wise tough job easy. Works with PATA 3.5", PATA 2.5", and SATA drives.

How do I wipe my hard drive clean so I can sell my iMac G3?

I have an iMac G3 (model #5521) with OS 9 and need to know how to wipe the hard drive clean so I can safely sell it. I tried following the advice someone gave to an earlier post, but was unable to find the security screen for the Zero All Data option or even Disk Utility on the Installer menu for that matter. I have these discs: Software Install, Software Restore and Apple Hardware Test. If someone would be so kind as to walk me through the process step by step, I would greatly appreciate it. I know very little about Apple computers.

You need to boot to the Software Install CD-ROM that came with the iMac. To do so boot the computer off the CD-ROM by holding down the C key. Once it boots up open the Utilities folder displayed in the open CD-ROM window. Open Drive Setup. Open the Functions menu. Select the option labeled Options. In that window select the Zero All Data option checkbox. Open the initialization menu. Select initialization options. You want to make sure the iMac formats its hard drive in HFS+ or Mac OS Extended. Once you've selected all the initialization options click the Initialize button. It will then format the hard drive & check it for bad sectors. Then reinstall the Mac OS. Then it should be ready to sell.

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

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