Question about selling an imac

[goeagles]

I am planning to sell my iMac on craigslist/kijiji (or here, I guess) and have read about all the steps to take before selling (wiping hard drives, deactivating accounts, reinstalling OS, etc) but how would you go about proving that the computer is in good working condition?

I realize that I could do all of those things (wiping the drive, etc) AFTER someone has agreed to buy it, but I’ve found that kijiji buyers often want to meet in a neutral location or would want to take the computer with them when they come look at it (I gathered that prepping the computer for a new user would be a couple of hours at least).

I know there’s a disk utility that shows the condition of the hard drive, for example, that I could take a screen shot of but I don’t know if that would be useful or not… Any ideas?

[goeagles]

For what it’s worth, it is a 27” iMac, late 2009 model. Core i5 2.66 processor, 4GB ram, 1TB hard drive…

[Regular_John]

Basically you're gonna want to restore the mac to "factory" condition. So wipe the drive and do a fresh install of OS X. It'll boot up into the "welcome to OS X" user set up, so you'll be able to confirm that it's in booting condition. You can also boot into "safe mode" to view the disk utility and such.

[calgarywinning]

Basically selling a computer which is a physical device should occur at your residence or location of the computer.

The agreement should be made in advance for the purchase price and the computer should not be allowed to be taken by the seller until you have cash payment.

You as the seller, can put a condition of sale to have a day to prepare the computer for a new user (eradicate you data) upon purchase. I would recommend you get your new computer/device in advance and prepare the computer in advance so this is not a condition of sale. Most people will want to purchase and take the computer with them.