Erase HD for new owner?

Question

I'm giving my old MacBook Pro to my daughter. I want to give it to her "like new," so she can set it up the way she wants it. In Disk Utility, the option to erase is greyed out. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Answer 1

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer.  Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the  "C" key.  Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.)  Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.  Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer.  Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. After you finish Setup Assistant will complete the installation after which
         you will be running a fresh install of OS X.  You can now begin the update process
         by opening Software Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your
         installation current.
     5. If you are planning to sell or give your computer away, then do the following:
        After you reformat your hard drive and reinstall OS X, the computer restarts to a
        Welcome screen and asks you to choose a country or region. If you want to leave
        the Mac in an out-of-box state, don't continue with the setup of your system. Instead,
        press Command-Q to shut down the Mac. When the new owner turns on the Mac,
        the Setup Assistant will guide them through the setup process.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
If this computer came with Lion or later pre-installed:
What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support
Follow the initial steps in this link to be sure you have signed out of your iCloud account, etc.