[jrebman]

I'm going to be selling my mbp 13 shortly and want to know what I should do to securely remove my personal info and accounts, etc.

I'm planning on formatting a 500 gb drive and installing the OS from scratch, but will I have to add an account, iTunes store info, etc. to complete theis proces?

I plan to do a secure format on the new drive and I assume the most universal way to format the drive would be with journnalling on?

Any tips appreciated.

Note, for those who are going to ask, I love the mbp and am not leaving the mac world, but with my iPad I really no longer need the portability and I'm going to order a new mini for my desktop machine when they come out.  The one issue I have with the MBP is the lack of a control key on the right hand side as with VoiceOver, all commands use the control-option modifier combination and there are just too many options that make having the one control key a real pain.  I also sometimes have problems unintentionally hitting the touchpad which takes the reading cursor away from where I want it.

The new mini (or possibly iMac) will be much more suited to what I need.

Thanks,

Jim

[jqp]

They say there is no way to really erase the data short of a destruction of the drive.

Practically speaking, a "secure" format which is geared toward your drive model should be fine. I would determine from the internet which drive model you have, and then take it from there. Otherwise just repartition and then reformat. Make sure they are not expecting an OS as part of the deal, unless you want to reinstall OSX.

If you wanted to leave the OS intact, I am not sure you can really do a "secure" format. There is just too much forensic software out there.

[jaywills]

Jim, here are my suggestions FWIW.  Use the secure erase option on your disk utility, I think the 7-pass option will be fine unless you're selling it to the CIA.  To be sure, physical destruction is the only method of which I'm aware to insure that your data can't be recovered, but that's for extreme recovery operations that aren't readily available to normal users.  If you want to be absolutely safe, simply replace your internal HD (it's not difficult) with a new one which you can probably pick up for ~70 bucks or less and install a fresh OS. 

As far as installing a new OS, you can simply install it and decline to begin the "new user" setup procedure that is offered on restarting after installation.  Your buyer will be offered those options the first time he/she/it starts it up (or they can be accesses through the drop-down menu) and they can configure it according to their own specific needs.  If you only are using a single partition on your boot disc, format it "journaled" for a variety of reasons, none harmful to your new user.  Some Mac systems have problems with multiple "journaled" partitions on the same disc, for reasons that I can't recall as I'm writing this.   

Of course, YMMV.  Good luck.  Cordially,

[JohnR]

Last time I sold a laptop I did the format and reinstall. I think I might have used secure format, it takes a long time...

I decided to create a new user 'admin' and do all the software updates. I figured a new buyer would prefer it "ready to go."

[Pez]

Jim, here are my suggestions FWIW.  Use the secure erase option on your disk utility, I think the 7-pass option will be fine unless you're selling it to the CIA.

But if I'm not mistaken this is exactly what all government agencies use as protocol to wipe their drives. From what I've read no data can be recovered at all past 5 passes. The extra 2 are just for good measure.

[jrebman]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions and advice.  The drive I will be using is a music backup drive that I'll reformat (securely) and then I'll just option out of the final setup steps and let the new owner do that.  The music backup drive was only used a couple of times, so it is basically brand new.

Thanks again to everybody for the help,

Jim