Sold a MacBook, can the buyer recover my data?

[LAbrophy]

Basically I sold a MacBook Air 2018 on Ebay with a smashed retina screen and was displaying on an external monitor.

I went into disc utility and erased the hard drive, however when the MacBook went into online recovery mode to re-install the OS it would not display on the external monitor so I could not complete the install.

I explained this to the buyer and he said it is not a problem and he will reboot this fine as he's installing a new screen.

The buyer has now messaged me asking for my device password as he needs it to boot from an external drive, even though I was under the impression I completely erased the device.

Can I give him the password in confidence knowing that he can't recover all my data?

Thanks in advance!

 

[svanstrom]

Basically I sold a MacBook Air 2018 on Ebay with a smashed retina screen and was displaying on an external monitor.

I went into disc utility and erased the hard drive, however when the MacBook went into online recovery mode to re-install the OS it would not display on the external monitor so I could not complete the install.

I explained this to the buyer and he said it is not a problem and he will reboot this fine as he's installing a new screen.

The buyer has now messaged me asking for my device password as he needs it to boot from an external drive, even though I was under the impression I completely erased the device.

Can I give him the password in confidence knowing that he can't recover all my data?

Thanks in advance!

It depends on what type of "erase" that happened; as well as the tools available to the buyer.

If I remember correctly the default is that it basically acts like throwing away the map to an area would; meaning that the area with all it's features still exists, you just don't easily know where they are.

A proper erase would in that example be like you didn't just throw away the map, you actually also used bulldozers to absolutely level the whole area.

Any chance that he's actually asking for a firmware password, did you set one of those?

Can you tell him that you feel uncomfortable giving out a password (maybe say that it's a very personal one), and meet up so that you can finish the process yourself?

 

[xraydoc]

Basically I sold a MacBook Air 2018 on Ebay with a smashed retina screen and was displaying on an external monitor.

I went into disc utility and erased the hard drive, however when the MacBook went into online recovery mode to re-install the OS it would not display on the external monitor so I could not complete the install.

I explained this to the buyer and he said it is not a problem and he will reboot this fine as he's installing a new screen.

The buyer has now messaged me asking for my device password as he needs it to boot from an external drive, even though I was under the impression I completely erased the device.

Can I give him the password in confidence knowing that he can't recover all my data?

Thanks in advance!

Could be the firmware password, which will block him from re-installing the OS, and not your old data's password.

 

[MBAir2010]

you are just giving them the MacBook password, correct?
if they do a reinstall and they enter their apple account credentials after reinstalling an OSX, you should be fine
unless
since apple has 2 factory sign-ins, you will be alerted when they log into anything apple related.
if you sold the MacBook say to Dallas, and then you get a notification from Dallas,
then you know your info is still on the MacBook.

 

[Howard2k]

The first thing you need to do is identify which password it's asking for. I'd ask for a screenshot/photo.
Then you can consider the risks when you know whether it's an account or firmware or whatever.

Also consider whether you use that password in any other locations.

 

[SmOgER]

With all that being said, the answer is yes. Password will unlock encryption and by using the right tools he would be able to access a good chunk of your files. Especially since there's no new OS files installed on top of it.

Your best move is to meet him in person and finish the whole process of reinstalling the OS yourself.