I just sold my Cube last night on eBay. The auction price jumped $90 in the last 30 seconds, which is always a welcome turn of events when you’re a seller.
As I was getting the Cube backed up and ready for sale, I was looking for information on how to give a buyer that “first-time-out-of-the-box” experience when starting the Cube. Well, the computer is all packed up and ready to ship now, which means of course that I would find just the information I was looking for. It goes a little something like this:
1. Set up the Mac as you want it (install apps, etc.)
2. Reboot into single-user mode (reboot the machine and hold down the command +s keys as soon as you hear the startup sound.)
3. You’ll get dumped into the terminal. Wait for the command prompt to appear and type: mount -uw /
— This mounts the boot volume so you can edit it.
** Be very careful from this point forward.**
4. Type: cd /Users
— Moves into the Users directory
5. Type: rm -rf *
— Deletes all of the User folders (Shared, etc.) in the Users directory. BE VERY CAREFUL with this command – make sure you’re in the Users folder. If you’re not positive, type: pwd – the output should be “/Users”
6. Type: cd /var/db/netinfo
— moves into the directory that contains the account information
7. Type: rm local.nidb
— Clears the netinfo database and all of the existing accounts on the system
8. Type: cd ../
— Moves up one level
9. Type: rm .AppleSetupDone
— Remove the file that tells the OS that setup has already been run – note the period in front of the filename.
10. Type shutdown -h now
— Shuts down the Mac
Now the system will basically be back at its “virgin” state with no existing user accounts or user files. The OS looks for the existence of “.AppleSetupDone,” and if it doesn’t find it, it reruns the entire startup sequence (movie, create user, etc.).