Can I safely sell an iMac after removing the HDD?

[d_gomaiste]

Hey all,

Recently, my 2012 iMac died, and I was able to salvage all of my data by removing the HDD and connecting to a new Mac via a SATA/USB HD enclosure.

I have a friend who flips old Macs + computer parts, and I was planning on selling what remains of the old iMac to him for cheap.

He asked me if I cleared all of my passwords, which struck me as odd, because I'm not selling the hard drive. I wasn't aware of any sensitive data being stored in the logic board or RAM... am I missing something here? Do I have to worry about selling the remaining parts?

Thanks!!

 

[sublunar]

Sounds like a mistake there by your friend - if the iMac is being sold for parts with no HD then there's no data there to pick up (assuming there wasn't a Fusion Drive on board but you'd notice the SSD). If it were a PC then there could only be a BIOS password to worry about for example.

 

[kohlson]

Sounds like he's just asking a "standard question." You may want to ask him "You know that there's no drive in this, right?"

 

[iMi]

I agree. You are totally fine, assuming no Fusion drive. All personal data is on the HDD.

 

[d_gomaiste]

Awesome, just as I had expected. Thanks so much guys!!

 

[Fishrrman]

Did you use a firmware password, by any chance?
That is NOT stored in the drive.
If it's set (and not cleared when you sell it), the iMac logic board won't be bootable, even in another Mac.

 

[Weaselboy]

I wasn't aware of any sensitive data being stored in the logic board or RAM... am I missing something here?

If you ever used Internet recovery, your wifi password is stored in NVRAM, so you should reset NVRAM to clear that out.

 

[cynics]

Also don't forget to remove the iMac from your iCloud account.