Preparing MacBook for sale, optical drive isn't working, can I delete private info?

We upgraded to the new unibody macbook and want to sell our old core duo, 2.0 GHz running Tiger.

I want to clear all of our personal data, but the superdrive is hit or miss as far as when it wants to work, and today it's completely miss.

I don't care about saving any of the applications we've added, as I wasn't going to include them anyway, but is there a way to clear our info off of the hard drive without needing the optical drive for recovery? Ideally I'd like to set the system up just how it was from the factory, like you would using the boot disc that I cannot use due to not having an optical drive.

Can I do it without deleting and reinstalling the operating system? If not, can I use an external hard drive to boot from? External optical drive?

Do I have any options without paying to get a new superdrive?

I have a buyer that has a new superdrive, but I'd rather not install it before the sale since I don't trust someone messing around the inside of my macbook that isn't authorized, and I sure as heck don't want to trust him to do the reinstall and erase all of my data.

Thanks for any input you guys may have.

erase data

you could try and find someone with a usb or firewire cd drive and then reinstall leopard from that?

would the macbook recognize the external drive after the hard drive has been wiped clean and no operating system is on it yet?

Also, it only came with Tiger, wouldn't it be wrong to use the new computer's leopard disc to put that on the old computer? Not trying to be holier than though here... just don't want to violate the forum rules and really most people that buy a used macbook that is 3 generations old (ok 2.5) probably don't care whether or not tiger or leopard are on it.

External Drive

Yes, the computer should recognize the drive even if it is a fresh install of the operating system. I don't even know if you could use the leopard disk to install that on the core duo if you wanted to. I am not sure if it would work or not.

I have your solution, use a Genius(TM)

brady1027 said:

you could try and find someone with a usb or firewire cd drive and then reinstall leopard from that?

Click to expand...

The applestore reinstalled my OS from an external HD.

They or you can do that for you or the new owner.

Pat me on the back for I'm good. Ouch that hurts my wrist when I do it myself.

Meanwhile, I wish I had one. Plus a PC100 RAM of 512 and Tiger.
I'm in LA and I'm reaching out to you!

thanks.