[gbhgbh]

I just sold my iMac. When I deliver it to the buyer, I want to leave the OS in a state that a person experiences when they first purchase a Mac. How do I reinstall the OS (OS 10.5) so that it's in this condition? (I don't want to enter a user and password, I want to leave that for the new owner.)

[Chuckit]

Perform a clean install with the system restore DVD.

[Big Mac]

After the clean install is done, you can restart the iMac while holding the mouse button and the option button, in order to eject the install DVD and prevent the computer from starting up directly into the OS. You'll see the boot menu at which point you can turn the computer off (which avoids having to boot into the OS and then turn it off during the setup assistant).

[Art Vandelay]

You can also hold the Eject key to eject the disc too. And if you do still boot up to the assistant, just hit Command+Q and you'll be presented with an option to shutdown.

[Jittery Jimmy]

I prepared my old PowerBook for sale just yesterday.

Here are the steps I went through to prepare my PowerBook fro resale:

1. Did a full backup to an external hard disk - just in case.
2. Created a new admin account
3. Fully removed all old accounts
4. Did an "erase free space" from within disk utility
5. Reinstalled OS as from the factory with provided DVD.

I wanted to make sure that my user account files were fully off the disk, hence my step #3 & #4.

[Art Vandelay]

You could just do a secure erase from the Install CD/DVD instead of futzing around with accounts like you did.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

You can also hold the Eject key to eject the disc too. And if you do still boot up to the assistant, just hit Command+Q and you'll be presented with an option to shutdown.

Oh cool, that works better.