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I bought a used Macbook Pro from a reseller on eBay. Now that I have received it, is there any way to know if they possibly loaded spyware or can in any other way get access to information/browsing/passwords? I haven't connected it to my home network or internet nor have I signed in with my iTunes yet because I'm a bit paranoid. It has Catalina loaded.
MacBook
dubydoo1220 wrote:
Thank you. I have gone to the instructions but where is says choose MacIntosh HD, I don't have that choice but instead there are two internal disks labeled '500GB' and '500GB-Data'. I am not sure if this means it has two drives that need erasing or just the 'data' drive. Thanks for any advice.
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/25451e11-60e3-4458-ace0-32ac3db1e057
Ok, I am about to erase, there is a choice of format to choose which defaulted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but you are saying choose APFS when erasing because I'm going to reinstall Catalina, correct?
dubydoo1220 wrote:
I bought a used Macbook Pro from a reseller on eBay. Now that I have received it, is there any way to know if they possibly loaded spyware or can in any other way get access to information/browsing/passwords? I haven't connected it to my home network or internet nor have I signed in with my iTunes yet because I'm a bit paranoid. It has Catalina loaded.
What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac ...
Erase/Format the parent drive if you are in doubt.
How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
Selling a Mac requires compliance with What to do before you sell, give away, or give away your Mac.
It appears the seller was negligent. Either return it for a refund in accordance with eBay's policies or accept it the way it is. Should you choose the latter begin with Step 6 in the above instructions.
Thank you. I have gone to the instructions but where is says choose MacIntosh HD, I don't have that choice but instead there are two internal disks labeled '500GB' and '500GB-Data'. I am not sure if this means it has two drives that need erasing or just the 'data' drive. Thanks for any advice.
It means Catalina is installed. That's how it's supposed to look - as a partition group.
Erase the parent drive as you have it highlighted. That will wipe out everything. You can't erase the drive out from under yourself, so restart in Recovery Mode (restart and hold down the Command+R keys) and run Disk Utility from there.
Thank you. Now the choices under Format are: APFS, APFS (encrypted) a few more APFS choices, then Mac Os Extended (Journaled)(Journaled, Encrypted) then ExFAT, MS-DOS(Fat). This should be my last question, thanks to all for the immediate help!
You can run Mojave or earlier on a Mac OS Extended drive. Catalina requires APFS. Though if you install Mojave from scratch, it will normally change the drive's format to APFS. And since you have an SSD installed, it will definitely do that.
dubydoo1220 wrote:
Ok, I am about to erase, there is a choice of format to choose which defaulted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but you are saying choose APFS when erasing because I'm going to reinstall Catalina, correct?
choose APFS when erasing because I'm going to reinstall Catalina, correct—Correct.
GUID/APFS
1 drive, 2 volumes.
From the View menu > Show all devices.
The choose the uppermost, unindented icon to select the entire drive and click on Erase.
Spyware Malware
