Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Turbones

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 9, 2012
3
0
Can anyone help me out with resetting my macbook pro to factory status? I will be selling it. So, it needs to be as completely new as when I first powered it up. With the new user account prompting & all that.

Now, I have read up on my own and I know the part about pressing command-R during startup to load Lion Recovery. Also, erasing and reformatting the Macintosh HD using disk utility.

What I do not get is the part about installing Mountain Lion through an internet connection. To do this, one has to sign in with an Apple id and a password. I have these. But I did not get Mountain Lion from the app store. I bought it a few days ago with everything preinstalled.

My concern is to delete all personal data and my user account. If I sign in with my details to install the OS, wouldn't the laptop be already customized?

Can someone please help me out on this? Appreciate it.
 

GoCubsGo

macrumors Nehalem
Feb 19, 2005
35,742
155
Copy your data, zero out your hard drive and reinstall the OS you sold it with. Be sure to provide the OS DVDs. Install whatever other software it was supposed to come with as well.
 

HGMIV18

macrumors newbie
Oct 9, 2012
3
0
If you perform an Erase & Install as described here, you shouldn't have to re-enter your AppleID information to reinstall, however you will still need to be connected to the Internet.

Edit: I didn't read all of OP's post, changed my answer.
 

Turbones

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 9, 2012
3
0
I think I'll try out what HGMIV18 suggested. After I have reinstalled OS X, how do I skip the whole create a new user account thing? Does anybody know? I read somewhere to press Command-Q. That doing so will quit the installer and allow me to shut down the computer. Is it so?
 

RipeRetina

macrumors regular
Mar 26, 2009
202
4
Maryland
Can anyone help me out with resetting my macbook pro to factory status? I will be selling it. So, it needs to be as completely new as when I first powered it up. With the new user account prompting & all that.

Now, I have read up on my own and I know the part about pressing command-R during startup to load Lion Recovery. Also, erasing and reformatting the Macintosh HD using disk utility.

What I do not get is the part about installing Mountain Lion through an internet connection. To do this, one has to sign in with an Apple id and a password. I have these. But I did not get Mountain Lion from the app store. I bought it a few days ago with everything preinstalled.

My concern is to delete all personal data and my user account. If I sign in with my details to install the OS, wouldn't the laptop be already customized?

Can someone please help me out on this? Appreciate it.

Put Mountain Lion on a flash drive. There are plenty of websites that show you how to do this. I'd post one for you, but macrumours doesn't like it when I post certain links.
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.