New iMac arrived slightly damaged

[Philinator]

After waiting for 10 days for my Super Saver shipped iMac from Amazon, one of the corners has bubbled plastic (if that makes sense). I'm sending it back, but it will probably be a few days before the replacement arrives. I'd like to go ahead and start using it and configuring it, then I'll just use target disk mode to copy over any customizations I've made.

My question is this, can I revert the hard drive to the "started for the first time" state before I ship it back? If I do a clean install of Tiger using the disks provided, is that what will happen?

Thanks,

Phil

 

[CoMpX]

Could you possibly send a picture of the damage for us?

Yes you can revert it to the "new mode" uhhh....mode by doing a clean install of Tiger. However, if you are shipping back to a company, I'm sure they will erase it themselves. If you wanted to erase your data to protect your identity, then i recommend a 7 or 35 pass erase using Disk Utility.

 

[jer2eydevil88]

Phil,

Unless you work for the Department of Defense or are worried about having a billion dollars stolen from the bank then you can just simply erase and install from the restore discs.

If by any means you feel your data is worth waiting a day or two then please complete the 7 - 35 pass secure erasing method.

 

[Philinator]

Yes, I'll take a picture when I get home in a few minutes. It looks like it was probably a manufacturing defect, and it's not really obvious unless there's light reflecting off of it, but it's bad enough that I want a new one.

I'm primarily concerned about data. If I use Disk Utility to erase the disk, it just erases my personal data? Or does it render the disk completely clean (in which case I'm assuming you run Disk Utility from the DVD drive).