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"Hi, I get a new M2 MacBook Pro and want to sell my old Intel MacBook. Before selling it, I want to reformat the hard drive, how can I do it?"

reformat Intel Mac

A MacBook is a high-quality laptop. It's a great way to get stuff done at work or in business. To afford a new Mac, you may need to part ways with your old one. Before you do that, make sure you've backed up everything you need to and reset the computer to factory settings so the future user can easily customize it to their liking.

What to do before you reset your MacBook Air, Pro, or other Mac PC and how to perform the reset itself are outlined here in simple, step-by-step detail. Please back up all of your important files before resetting your MacBook, as doing so will delete everything on the hard drive and, eventually, the software.

The following is a detailed explanation of how to complete this factory reset and the safety measures you should take.

Back Up Your Data Before Erasing Your Old Intel Mac

A backup or clone of your Mac is necessary before you do anything else. That is because, as you might guess, restoring a Mac to its original configuration deletes all user data.

Stay away from the pitfalls we encountered! After wiping the Mac, we realized that the data for one non-Apple app we used wasn't backed up in the cloud, even though we use iCloud to sync all files across all our Apple devices and assumed we could recover everything we needed from the cloud. It's simple to make a blunder in today's cloud computing. Some things can't be backed up to iCloud from your Mac.

Create a bootable clone for your Mac

Create a bootable clone for your Mac

Download and install DoYourClone, open it and then clone entire startup disk to an external hard drive to make a full bootable clone backup.

Reformat Intel-based Mac in macOS Recovery Mode

The quickest way to delete everything from the Intel Mac is to reformat the hard drive. Normally, you can not reformat the startup disk of the Intel Mac. However, in macOS Recovery mode, you have the chance to reformat the startup disk drive. After backing up your data, you also should login out your accounts on the Mac.

Before you finally say goodbye to your Mac, a few programs must be removed. You should consider any licensing you may have acquired for third-party software, as they may only be used on a specific number of machines.

Similarly, you should deauthorize your iTunes account on the Mac to prevent it from accessing any of your purchased media from the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, or App Store.

Reset NVRAM: Turn off your Mac, then power it back up while simultaneously holding down the Option, Command, P, and R keys. That will reset the NVRAM and remove any user settings that may have been stored in the memory. After around 20 seconds, you should let them go.

Use Disk Utility to erase the Mac:

That is the crucial part, but it may also be tricky. To begin, launch Recovery Mode in macOS. To achieve this, power down your Mac and restart it while holding down Command+R.

On Utilities window, select Disk Utility.

reformat Intel Mac

Select the Mac disk, choose Erase.

reformat Intel Mac

Click Erase again to erase everything on the Mac disk.

Back to Utilities windows, choose Reinstall macOS XXX. Follow the onscreen guide to finish the macOS installing process step by step. Then you will get a the old Intel Mac with a fresh new copy of system and all factory settings.

Permanently Wipe Data on Intel-based Mac

Please note that even you have erased the startup disk using Disk Utility, the erased data is not lost forever. With a data recovery application, you or anyone else can recover the erased data from your Mac. To permanently wipe all data from your Intel Mac, you can try data erasure software - such as DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac.

DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac

  • Permanently erase data from Mac.
  • Once the data is erased by Super Eraser, the data is lost forever.
  • Wipe hard drive, erase files, wipe deleted data.

After reformatting Intel Mac using Disk Utility and reinstalling macOS, all the personal settings are reset, user files and installed programs are removed from the drive. However, these data is still recoverable as mentioned. You can use DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac to wipe the removed data to ensure the data is no longer recoverable:

Just download and install DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac on your Mac. Open it and do as follows to wipe the removed/deleted data permanently step by step.

Step 1. Choose Wipe Free Space mode, select the Mac disk, click on Wipe Now button to continue.

wipe free space on Intel Mac

Step 2. You will be asked to select a data erasure standard which will be applied to wipe the data from the free space of the drive.

wipe free space on Intel Mac

Step 3. Start the data wiping process. DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac will wipe free disk space of the Mac and permanently erase all deleted/lost data on the Intel Mac. It will take some time to finish depending on the size of the disk.

wipe free space on Intel Mac

After wiping the Intel Mac using DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, the personal data on the Mac is gone forever. You can sell or donate it without any worry about data leakages.

Conclusion:

In order to delete data from an Intel-based Mac completely and irretrievably, the quickest and easiest method is to restart the computer into Recovery Mode and use the tool known as Disk Utility. If you're going to sell your Mac, you should delete all of the information on it beforehand. DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac can help you wipe the data permanently and guarantee the data is unrecoverable in any way.

Before we provide the instructions, one last thing to remember is to back up everything presently stored on your Mac. If you do not make a copy of your data before you erase it from the disk, you will lose it permanently.

FAQs about Reformatting Old Intel Mac

In some cases, it's necessary to reformat an old Intel Mac, for example:
  • Get a fresh new start for the macOS.
  • Fix some system or application issues.
  • Remove viruses or malware from the old Intel Mac.
  • Reset the old Intel Mac before selling or donating it.
  • Free space on the old Intel Mac drive.

First, it's not able to reformat the internal system drive of an old Intel Mac directly with third-party tools or Disk Utility. If you want to format the Mac, you need to go to Recovery Mode. Here is how:
  • Press Command and R keys when starting the Mac to get into Recovery Mode.
  • Choose Disk Utility from the list and then select the Mac drive.
  • Click Erase button at the top of the interface.
  • Choose the file system if needed, then start to reformat it.

Yes, the data is still recoverable after reformatting the drive or reinstalling macOS. With professional data recovery software, it's easy to get the data back.

You need to wipe the data permanently to ensure the data is unrecoverable. After reformatting the old Intel Mac in Recovery mode an reinstalling macOS, all your personal data is removed. You can then wipe the free space of the drive to make sure the removed data is gone forever beyond data recovery. Here are the steps:
  • Download and install DoYourData Super Eraser for the old Intel Mac.
  • Run the software from launchpad.
  • Change to "Wipe Free Space" mode and select the Mac drive.
  • Select a data erasure standard and then wipe the data permanently from the free space of the old Intel Mac drive.
DoYourData Super Eraser

DoYourData Super Eraser

DoYourData Super Eraser, the award-winning data erasure software, offers certified data erasure standards including U.S. Army AR380-19, DoD 5220.22-M ECE to help you securely and permanently erase data from PC, Mac, HDD, SSD, USB drive, memory card or other device, make data be lost forever, unrecoverable!

DoYourData Author

Written & Updated by Shirly Chen

Shirly Chen has been writing data recovery, data erasure articles for DoYourData over 4 years. She has been working as a professional website content writer & editor for quite a long time. She also writes articles about disk clone, Mac optimization, disk backup, etc.

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