Wiping Mac

Robbie Comeau

Robbie Comeau

Como's back. back again
Hey guys,

I know this is all over the internet, but I wanna be safe and I want to describe what I want to do so I get perfect results :)

My old I-mac, is going to be sold soon.

What is the best way to back everything up and how? Just copy it ALL onto a fresh new hard drive?

After I do that, and I have everything saved and stored onto a new hard drive, how do I wipe my mac completely as If I just bought it?

Thanks! :)

Robbie
 
Anything you want to hold onto... especially your Documents folder... just drop onto a FW drive for now. That'll back it up and give you time later to sort through everything.

To wipe it totally clean, I'd grab the disc that came with the computer and do a total re-install of the OS. Of course, that'll also get rid of any software you've added. But it will get rid of any personal files.
 
Robbie Comeau said:
What If I can't find the disc :(...

Or better yet, can I use the disc that came with my new Mac?

Robbie
Click to expand...

Well, if you can't find the disc, is there any chance that you updated the OS at any point, and have that disc? (If you bought the iMac with Panther and upgraded to Leopard, or bought it with Tiger and updated to Panther.)

The disc that came with your new Mac most likely won't work.

If nothing else, then you need to go through and completely clean out your documents, music, and movies folders, and any other location that would have personal stuff that you've backed up to the drive.
 
Use this free program to clone your system onto an external drive. The new drive will be bootable and you can use the program again or migration assistant to copy stuff back to your new system when you get it.

http://bombich.com/ccc

It copies everything, including invisible files and permissions the system needs to function properly. If you just try to copy your hard drive manually, OS X will not recognize it as a system drive and it won't boot, and many of your programs such as Final Cut won't work and will have to be re-installed.
 
Make sure you deauthorize any programs that use hidden files for authorization like iTunes or Final Draft. Carbon Copy Cloner is great, but I know it doesn't catch my Final Draft authorization (can't remember about iTunes). Otherwise, CCC is great.
 
I've been meaning to do this, but I'm still running Panther (10.3.9) on this machine. CCC only works on Tiger and Leopard. Any ideas?
 
This is Carbon Copy Cloner for Jaguar & 10.2 Panther 10.3:

http://www.bombich.com/software/files/cccloner-2.3.dmg


A lot of your personal files can be hidden in various levels of folders in OSX, ie documents stored in USER folders, pictures and thumbnails in iphoto folder, Application Support files.... these can be backupped to DVD or copied to your new hard drive. To wipe your personal stuff without wiping the system. You can set up another USER, make sure it boots to the new user. Then delete your user account. Anything deleted can still be retreived by a data restoration program so it's safer to erase the whole disk. But if you decide to keep the old system, delete personal files and USER account, and copy junk files to fill up the disk, then delete the junk files. That overwrites your old files so they can't be recovered.
 
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