Resetting macOS Big Sur back to factory preset

csno01

Hi guys,

I have a new Mac and I am considering Resetting my old Mac to factory presets and I was wondering if this was recommended please?

The macOS currently installed on my old machine, is Big Sur. offhand I think it’s version 11.

Thank you

CSno01

CATP

csno01 said:

Hi guys,

I have a new Mac and I am considering Resetting my old Mac to factory presets and I was wondering if this was recommended please?

The macOS currently installed on my old machine, is Big Sur. offhand I think it’s version 11.

Thank you

CSno01

hi CSno01, what issues have you got with needing to do a factory reset?

 my experience with OSX is only a few years worth from somewhere around 1999 (and even back then it was under the amazing power PC architecture,super stable setup,great for gaming on when you found a game thatd run on OSX, and from what i remember you didnt need to do things like defragging the hard drive like you had to with windows) so if you are finding its really slow for example it may be the hard drive. do you know if its a regular hard drive or an SSD as i have no experience of OSX on the mac intel setups? with a regular hard disk/drive, if its struggling to read data and dying it tends to make a quite fast ticking noise,i dont know if youve come across this ever so youd know what i mean?.

....there may possibly be a downside to doing a factory reset if your OSX is no longer suported by apple.

ive used iOS for many years due to having an ipad as my comunication,and one thing i know with iOS and (at least) old OSX is when apple stop the suport for a specific OS, youll find a lot of apps stop updating and the app store will give off an error saying your device no longer supports there software when you try add anything new.

theres also another problem that can cause macs and high end PCs/laptops to lag like mad.

some programs have memory leaks and these can cause far to much memory to get used up on nothing,browsers like firefox was well known for this.

sorry i wish i coud help answer your issue.

if you dont get any replies, and youve got a steam acount,the mac forum on the steam comunity might be very helpful-even if you arent a gamer as such.

Zimba

If you no longer use your old Mac and you need nothing off it and maybe thinking of recycling it, it’s always a good option to reset It back to factory settings. If you want to keep it because you have things on there you want to keep, just leave as is and use off line.

csno01

CATP said:

csno01 said:

Hi guys,

I have a new Mac and I am considering Resetting my old Mac to factory presets and I was wondering if this was recommended please?

The macOS currently installed on my old machine, is Big Sur. offhand I think it’s version 11.

Thank you

CSno01

hi CSno01, what issues have you got with needing to do a factory reset?

 my experience with OSX is only a few years worth from somewhere around 1999 (and even back then it was under the amazing power PC architecture,super stable setup,great for gaming on when you found a game thatd run on OSX, and from what i remember you didnt need to do things like defragging the hard drive like you had to with windows) so if you are finding its really slow for example it may be the hard drive. do you know if its a regular hard drive or an SSD as i have no experience of OSX on the mac intel setups? with a regular hard disk/drive, if its struggling to read data and dying it tends to make a quite fast ticking noise,i dont know if youve come across this ever so youd know what i mean?.

....there may possibly be a downside to doing a factory reset if your OSX is no longer suported by apple.

ive used iOS for many years due to having an ipad as my comunication,and one thing i know with iOS and (at least) old OSX is when apple stop the suport for a specific OS, youll find a lot of apps stop updating and the app store will give off an error saying your device no longer supports there software when you try add anything new.

theres also another problem that can cause macs and high end PCs/laptops to lag like mad.

some programs have memory leaks and these can cause far to much memory to get used up on nothing,browsers like firefox was well known for this.

sorry i wish i coud help answer your issue.

if you dont get any replies, and youve got a steam acount,the mac forum on the steam comunity might be very helpful-even if you arent a gamer as such.

Hi there,

I’m basically looking to do a factory reset, if possible so that I can sell on my old machine. I have done some research and understand, that during this, isn’t always the best way forward. 

Alternatively, if all the versions of iOS are no longer supported in the current time, I’m looking just to wipe the system clean of my data sign out of all of my apps, and leave it at that.

Zimba said:

If you no longer use your old Mac and you need nothing off it and maybe thinking of recycling it, it’s always a good option to reset It back to factory settings. If you want to keep it because you have things on there you want to keep, just leave as is and use off line.

Hi@zimba,

I have already done the data transfer and backed up all the files I need from my old machine. 

66Mustang

I've always erased the hard drive (or SSD) in its entirety, i.e. so it's totally blank, then you can reinstall OSX in recovery mode via the internet

There's a guide here for various types of Mac

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh27903/mac#:~:text=Choose%20Apple%20menu%20%3E%20Restart%2C%20then%20immediately%20press%20and%20hold%20Command,click%20Erase%20in%20the%20toolbar. 

I don't know if that's the best way, but in honesty I didn't really care because my main priority if giving a device to someone else is making sure that my data is completely gone

csno01

66Mustang said:

I've always erased the hard drive (or SSD) in its entirety, i.e. so it's totally blank, then you can reinstall OSX in recovery mode via the internet

There's a guide here for various types of Mac

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh27903/mac#:~:text=Choose%20Apple%20menu%20%3E%20Restart%2C%20then%20immediately%20press%20and%20hold%20Command,click%20Erase%20in%20the%20toolbar. 

I don't know if that's the best way, but in honesty I didn't really care because my main priority if giving a device to someone else is making sure that my data is completely gone

Hi@66Mustang,
many thanks for the resources, I will take a look. I have heard various stories about completely erasing the hard drive, although you want to be sure that before giving it to someone else, it is completely white of your data. This I agree with . I’m just looking for the safest way forward.