Can someone help please, not sure how to do..

Question

hi everyone,
could really do with some help on what steps i need to take in order to take my computer back to the start, im giving my mac to my sister and i dont want her to have any of the files/information on there and she doesnt want it either, have saved what i need and now just need to find the button/steps to enable me to take the machine back to the beginning? i know how to do it on a sony laptop but cant find it on the mac. Id be really grateful for any help as shes coming to collect it tomorr!

Answer 1

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Your best option will be to do an Erase and Install together with your sister. This will allow you to completely erase the hard drive, and she will be able to see the "Welcome" screen and use the Setup Assistant to put in her own information and password.
According to your profile, you will be reinstalling Tiger?
Insert the DVD. Print out the "Read Me" and "Welcome to Tiger" so that you have them handy to refer to if you need to. Then double click the Install Mac OSX to boot from the DVD.
Before starting the installation, select your language and go to the utilities menu. Select the First Aid tab and then select the hard drive by brand name. Verify the Disk and repair if necessary. You don't want to do an installation on a disk that has any kind of problems. If there are any problems which cannot be repaired by Disk Utility, please post back with them.
If you like, you can go ahead and partition and format and erase the hard drive while you are in Disk Utility. This is often done before a fresh installation of the OS. If you need instructions, please post back.
Go on to the installation and follow the directions and agree to the licensing agreement. Then on the next screen, you will select the destination drive and you will see a button called "Options". Click on this button. Select "Erase and Install". Format as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then click OK to continue.
On the next screen, you can choose "Easy Install" or "Customize". The "Customize" option will allow your sister to delete any languages and printer drivers that she doesn't need and will free up a little hard drive space. Then you can click on "Install" to finish.
Your sister should be prepared to create her account, which means she will want to have selected a password. She should also have her "short name" selected, as that cannot be changed later. If she wants to set up her internet account immediately, she should also have that information at hand, although that can be done later. Ditto with the Apple I.D.
After everything is set up, reboot the computer. Go to Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility and drag to Dock. Open disk Utility and select the hard drive by brand name and click on the First Aid tab. Repair Disk Permissions until there is nothing left to repair.
If the DVD is not the latest version, your sister should connect to the internet and go to the Apple download site and Download the Mac OS X 10.4.11 combo update. Repair permissions afterwards. There may be other updates to do as well. Always repair permissions before and after any software installation.
If you need any clarification on any of this, please post back.
Good luck!