Wanting to clear down an old iMac to sell

mark66

mark66

mark66

Soldato
Joined
1 May 2003
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Location
Bucks
Hi,

I have an old 20" iMac running Lion 10.7.5. Rather than just throw away I thought I'd put it on eBay for £10 and see if it goes. However I want to clear it down first.

The guides to clear down a Mac seem to be to erase the HD and then re-install OSX. However it seems the only way to do this will be for me to buy the Lion downloader for £20 from Apple, which while I can do, I was hoping to just put on Ebay and I may not even get £20 for it.

Is there another way to clear down this mac without purchasing 10.7.5?

Thanks
 
Hi,

Yes, so the guide was to do cmd-R on restart, erase HD and then re-install. But I don't have the media to do the install. If I click Install it asks for my Apple ID but then states that the OSX is no longer available to download.

Is there another way or a way to create the USB boot disk from within Lion?

Sorry, not particularly up on all of this!
 
The mid 2007 20" iMac will run 10.11.6 (El Capitan) but the late 2006 will only go to Lion so I suspect it's that.

They did come with the OS supplied on disc but would have been shipped with Tiger and all the versions up to Mavericks had to be bought.

I bought them all.

@mark66 Give me a few minutes and I'll see if I can find mine. If I've still got it, you're welcome to it as I'll never use it.
 
Hi @Feek, many thanks, but I can't see a PM, should it show in Conversations?

I have found a Snow Leopard 10.6.3 disc, so I could try that and see if it will then upgrade to Lion?

The iMac is 20-inch, Mid 2007, with 2GB, which supposedly should go up to El-Capitan, however from having a read of this this link, it seems that the fact that the Mac says "No updates Available" suggests that it is completely out of support and won't. Therefore not sure if it is worth trying to go back to 10.6.3?

I simply want to clear the mac down - is a re-install of the OS really the only safe way?

Thanks
 
mark66 said:
Hi @Feek, many thanks, but I can't see a PM, should it show in Conversations?
Click to expand...
No, I've sent you an email via Trust.

mark66 said:
I have found a Snow Leopard 10.6.3 disc, so I could try that and see if it will then upgrade to Lion?
Click to expand...
It won't, it's a paid upgrade. But if you've got a Snow Leopard disc, just boot from that, re-partition the drive and start from scratch. Let the buyer worry about any other OS version.

mark66 said:
however from having a read of this this link, it seems that the fact that the Mac says "No updates Available" suggests that it is completely out of support and won't.
Click to expand...
I installed an older version of OS X on a Mac mini last year (can't remember exactly which version) and although it's well out of date, it was still offered the latest patches via Software Update. I honestly don't know whether you'll get the updates or not but again, let any buyer worry about that :)

mark66 said:
I simply want to clear the mac down - is a re-install of the OS really the only safe way?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't want to sell a computer that may have traces of anything on it to do with me. In theory, I suppose you can create a new user account, delete the existing user account and blat the contents of the old user home directory but if it were me, I'd much rather sell it with a fresh OS.
 
Ah ok, I've found the mail now.

I take on board all of the above and won't stress about getting it onto the latest version, just as long as all my data has been cleared, so I will try a fresh install using my Snow Leopard disc a go. If it doesn't work for any reason, I would like to take you up on your offer and give Lion a go.

Thanks again for the help.
 
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