Wanting to clear down an old iMac to sell

mark66 · 7 Feb 2021 at 16:21

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

mark66 · 7 Feb 2021 at 16:46

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!

mark66 · 7 Feb 2021 at 21:10

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 · 7 Feb 2021 at 21:50

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.