apple-savvy peeps:

[swingchickie]

i need to scrub my hard drive and reinstall the basics on my old iMac, so i can auction the darn thing on eBay. if i do what's outlined here, will that do it? and should my "software install and restore" disc have my old OS system on it? (it's a really old disc...)

Comments

[viellen]

Yep, that's right on the money. And, yes, your original install disks have the OS and all of the original SW that came on the computer.

If for some reason you're looking for added security, add these steps in:

1. After you've booted to your install disk by holding down "c" and selecting your language, go to Utilities (the menu up on top) and select "Disk Utility" (depending on how old the OS is, "Disk Utility" might not be under the "Utilities" menu, but it will be under one of the menus at the top).

2. Select your Hard Drive (usually called Macintosh HD). Click the "Erase" tab. Click "Security Options" and select "Zero Pass Erase". Then click Erase and confirm that you want to erase.

3. When it's done, quit Disk Utility and continue with the rest of the instructions from that site.

This takes about 45 minutes to run, but it literally writes 0's all over your data on the HD. A normal Erase and Install just takes the data and makes it "invisible", but any data rescue program could easily recover it. Most people aren't so super-secret that they need to take this step, but if you really want your data gone it's a good idea.