How to boot on MacMini's recovery partition without screen?

hi,
i'm using my MacMini on Mavericks with my iMac's screen. when i want to see the MacMini, i press cmd-F2 on the iMac's keyboard. so far so good.
problem is now i need to boot on my MacMini's recovery partition (to delete Macintosh HD since i'm selling the MacMini). i rebooted from the MacMini pressing Alt key for a very long time , lost the "MacMini's" screen, and THEN i pressed cmd-F2 on the iMac's keyboard.
unfortunately, there seems to be no way to use the iMac's screen for the MacMini for the above mentioned purpose: i press cmd-F2 but nothing happens.
i tried several times but no success.
please note that when trying to boot the MacMini "normally" (without pressing Alt key), i can see it as usual.
i'm really stuck. any suggestions please?
Thanks

belso wrote:
that means that, without a monitor (which i don't have anyway - apart from my iMac's one), i won't be able to see the recovery partition on the MacMini, right.
my main concern is to erase my MacMini's Macintosh HD before I sell the machine.
as a workaround, i'm considering:
1. doing a simple "install and erase". that would reinstall Mavericks. hope i can do that USING MY iMac's Monitor. is that right?
2. then i'd place plenty of dummy data on the empty new Mavericks install.
3. then i'd do another "install and erase"
please let me know whether such a procedure would make my personal data not retrievable by the person who'll purchase the MacMini.
Thanks.
Correct. You have to use a monitor to view the Recovery HD's OS X Utilities Menu. If there is a way of viewing the Recovery HD - OS X Utilities menu without a monitor, I don't know how.
And as far as preparing your Mac Mini for resale, it's best to put the version of OS X on that the Mac came with:
1. Clone your Mac Mini drive to an external drive so you can use your iMac as a monitor. You can use Carbon Copy Clone or SuperDuper (free for full clones).
2. Boot into the clone from the Mac Mini using the Option/Alt key at restart. And use Disk Utility to erase your Mac Mini's internal HDD. I think you can do a Secure Erase if you're concerned that someone could access files after a format.
3. This is the tricky part without a monitor. Somehow you need to be able to see a screen to boot into Internet Recovery (Command+Option+R) which boots to Apple's server. You'll see the same OS X Utilities menu, but it's from Apple and you can then install the version of OS X that came preinstalled (e.g Mountain Lion, Lion).
I don't know how you can do #3 without a monitor. And I'm assuming your Mac Mini came preinstalled with an OS X version prior to OS X Mavericks.

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