Need to wipe my slate clean

I tried to migrate to a new (to me) MacBook Pro, and the migration was only partly successful. I now need to wipe my hard drive and start again. I can't find any help on this in Mac Help. I don't have the OS disks here, as I am out of the country where my home base is. I'm afraid that if I use Disk Utility to erase my hard drive, I will lose all the basic programs that are part of the OS. How do I restore the laptop to "factory settings"? Thanks!

What does new to you mean? If it came with Leopard OS X.5 or Snow Leopard OS X.6 discs, pop in the disc, boot and hold down 'C', leave the Installer and go to Disk Utility under Utilities, erase and format the drive, back to Installer and proceed should you want a full install. If you do not wish to lose anything pop the disc in and just run the Installer. Nothing you van do without the discs ~ suggest making a duplicate set, which is legal, to take with you.

That will take it back to the versions of the discs, and then update.

As I said, I don't have the discs. The laptop is new to me, but not new. The seller did not provide me with the discs. Whatever I do has to be done without the discs.

You have not told us what version OS X is on the machine.

Can't install without the discs if you're on 10.6 or earlier.

You definitely will lose everything including the operating system if you erase the drive with Disk Utility. That's what erase does.

If you're running 10.7 or 10.8, there are other recovery options available.

clivechafer said:

I tried to migrate to a new (to me) MacBook Pro, and the migration was only partly successful. I now need to wipe my hard drive and start again. !

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Maybe not. What was transferred? Why not delete only those things and then try again?

It's 10.6.8. So, if I don't wipe it all clean, what problems should I expect? It stalled while Transferring System Settings. All my files and programs from the old computer are where they should be, as far as I can tell. Should I just carry on and see what happens? According to Disk Utility, the number of files and bytes used are slightly different on the two computers (719,777 files on the new, 695,165 on the old; 73.16GB used on the new, 78.51 on the old) - so more files, but taking up less space. Hmmmph. (The "new" laptop is a 15" MacBook Pro with a 2GHz Core Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB drive; the old is a 13" with 1.83GHz dual core, 1.25 GB of RAM and a 78GB drive.) Anyway, I'm tempted to just start using the new one and see what happens. Good idea or not?

What can it hurt to just carry on? You still have the old computer, right? If you need something from it, there are several ways to get it onto the new one.

That's true. But what might I have lost by its failure to complete the transfer of system settings?

You're asking a question no one can answer with any certainty.

No one is going to know how long you let it sit there before you decided it was stalled and stopped the migration, nor in fact, if it was stalled (not just still working on importing data in the background), where/why it was stalled. It's entirely possible it stalled at the re-boot sequence and has in fact imported all the settings.

The only way to know is by using the machine. If it is only system settings we're talking about, then I'd suggest using the machine and when you encounter a setting not to your liking, go in and change it.

Thanks. I've started using the new machine and already encountered some minor settings that were not transferred. Mostly just annoyances so far. The transfer had gone on for 3 hours more than the initial estimate, and was at Time Remaining: Less Than a Minute for more than 2 hours - so I think it was fair to assume it had stalled. Only time will tell if that was the last part of the migration sequence, I guess.