erasing hard drive for both mac and windows use

Erasing Hard Drive For Both And Windows Use Mac And Restore

Once you do that, youll be signed out Reformat Your Hard Drive Disk (HDD) Reformatting is a fancy tech word for wiping the hard drive clean and reinstalling the operating system.

If youre selling your computer or trading it in for something newer, youll probably want to wipe your hard drive.

Erasing Hard Drive For Both And Windows Use Mac And Restore

After all, you dont want to give it to its new owner with all your pictures and documents on it or lose those things But how do you wipe it How do you erase everything on your Mac and restore it to factory settings, so the next person gets a clean computer with none of your documents Weve got all the answers right here Read on to find out how.

Jump To: Backup Your Computer Using Time Machine Deauthorize Your iTunes Account Log Out of iCloud and iMessage Reformat Your Hard Drive Disk (HDD) How to Secure Erase a Mac SSD Reinstall the Mac OS FAQS Table of Contents Backup Your Computer Using Time Machine Deauthorize Your iTunes Account Log Out of iCloud and iMessage Reformat Your Hard Drive Disk (HDD) How to Secure Erase a Mac SSD Reinstall the Mac OS FAQS Can you reset a MacBook without losing data Do you have to wipe a Macs hard drive before you sell it Can you erase your hard drive and keep the same programs Can you wipe a Mac without the password Can you install Windows on a Mac after you erase it Wiping Your Hard Drive is Simple Backup Your Computer Using Time Machine Before you even think about wiping your hard drive, make sure that you have everything backed up.

After all, even if you dont want the computer anymore, you probably want all of the stuff on it.

And once you restore your computer to factory settings, all your photos, videos, documents, and downloads are going to be gone.

Whether youre getting rid of the computer or wiping your hard drive to fix an error, the best way to back up your Mac is to use Time Machine.

Essentially, this is a tool that Apple created to help people create a copy of their computer that could be accessed at a later date.

Solid-State Drive (SSD) Heres how you use it to back up your computer: Open System Preferences, located on the Apple Menu bar.

Select the Time Machine icon in the System Preferences folder.

Typically, youll want to plug in an external hard drive and select that.

This will create a copy of your internal hard drive and write it onto the external one.

Its a good idea to do this regularly even if you dont plan on wiping your hard drive.

By plugging in an external HD and backing everything up to Time Machine on a regular basis, youll create a copy of it that you can use in case you lose your data for any reason (it happens, believe us).

If youd prefer not to use Time Machine for any reason, you can use alternative methods.

For example, you can use iCloud or another cloud storage solution to store all of your files online.

Deauthorize Your iTunes Account If your iTunes account is connected to your computer, then the next owner will be able to access it.

That way, your account will no longer be linked to the machine.

Heres how you do it: Open iTunes on your computer Select Account from the options on the Menu bar.

Scroll down to Authorizations and select Deauthorize This Computer.

Once you enter that, it will give you the option to Deauthorize your account.

Log Out of iCloud and iMessage Similar to iTunes, you have to sign out of your iCloud account, too.

Heres what you do: Select System Preferences from the Menu bar.

Click the Sign Out option on the bottom-left side of the window.

Erasing Hard Drive For Both Mac And Windows Use