How do you erase your macbook hard drive?

Question

I have a MacBook Air and I am going to return it to the store & get a MacBook Pro instead, before I return it I want to completely erase the hard drive first. Apple says they'll do it but I really don't want to give them my computer with all my files out there for anyone to see. So how do I completely delete everything and bring it back to factory defaults??

Answer 1

Insert the gray DVD #1 that came with your computer. Restart the machine and hold down the C key so that it boots from the DVD. When the installer comes up, go to Utilities and choose Disk Utility. Erase the entire drive. Then exit Disk Utility and continue with the the OS installation and software restore.

Answer 2

Using Remote Install Mac OS X

You can use Remote Install Mac OS X to restore your computer to factory settings on a Mac without an optical drive, using another computer’s optical drive. The other computer must have Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later, or Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista.

1 Make sure both computers are on the same network (wired or wireless). Note: You can’t use Remote Install Mac OS X with a WEP-protected wireless network.

2 Make sure that you have installed DVD or CD Sharing on the computer whose optical drive you’re using. If the computer is a Mac with Mac OS X 10.5.3 or later, DVD or CD Sharing is installed.

 To install DVD or CD Sharing on a Mac with Mac OS X 10.4.10-10.5.2, see: http://support.apple.com/downloads/DVD_or_CD_Sharing_Setup_Update_for_Mac

 On a Windows computer, see: http://support.apple.com/downloads/DVD_or_CD_ Sharing_Update_1_0_for_Windows

3 Insert the Mac OS X installation disc into the computer’s optical drive. 4 On the computer whose optical drive you’re using, open Remote Install Mac OS X.

 On a Mac, it is located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder.

 On a Windows computer, choose Remote Install Mac OS X from the Install Assistant. 5 Follow the onscreen instructions.

Read the introduction, select the installation disc you want to use, and depending on your type of network, select AirPort or Ethernet. Click Continue after each pane.

6 On the computer where you’re installing the software, hold down the Option key while restarting the computer, until you see the list of available startup disks.

7 On the computer with the installation disc, click Continue in Remote Install Mac OS X.

Note: If you selected AirPort as your network in step 5, choose your AirPort network from the pop-up menu. When you see the AirPort status icon indicating signal strength, click Continue in Remote Install Mac OS X.

8 On the computer where you’re installing the software, select the installation disc, and then click the arrow below the disc icon.

9 When the Language Chooser appears, select your language, and then click the

Continue button (looks like an arrow).

10 Choose Utilities > Disk Utility.

11 Select your disk from the list on the left, and then click the Erase tab.

12 Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format pop-up menu, type a name for your disk, and then click Erase.

After the disk has been erased, choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility, and then follow the instructions in the Mac OS X Installer to reinstall Mac OS X.

Note: Once the installation is complete, you may be prompted to use the Applications installation disc that came with your computer to reinstall your iLife applications (GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and iWeb). To reinstall your iLife applications, insert the Applications installation disc, double-click the Install Bundled Software icon,

and then follow the onscreen instructions.

Answer 3

nicely, Macs are very such as homestead windows so i could do a clean set up, reason formatting and re-putting in constantly made concerns speedy..Oddly :cutting-edge set up, De-frag your stress each and each month and delicate up the disk stress, Having alot of issues on the stress can develop loading situations because of the fact of it finding to income that stuff and open an app whilst.