Question(s) re: prepping older Macbook for resale

[wurm]

We bought our daughter a 13" Macbook Air for Christmas, so now I'm figuring I might as well try to get a few bucks for her older Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) Macbook. I considered just keeping it myself, and I may still, but I really can't see myself using it much at all.

So, as I prep this thing for possible sale, I'm wondering if I should put it back to near stock condition. It probably makes sense to keep the ram upgrade (a whopping 2GB, up from the 512MB it came with), but before I wipe the drive and reinstall Leopard/Snow Leopard, I'm wondering if I should keep the 320GB hard drive I installed a year or so ago, or put back in the 60GB drive it came with. I guess the question is whether the bigger drive will increase the value by enough to make it worthwhile. Frankly, I'm doubtful. If someone is going to be happy enough with an older portable, they're probably not going to be doing any heavy lifting with it, and a 60GB drive might be sufficient.

For what it's worth, I still have the original box and its manuals, etc. In fact, I discovered this weird black cloth (with the Apple logo, of course) in with the manual and license agreement, but I have no idea what it's for. Maybe a cleaning cloth?

Anyway, I'd appreciate any other thoughts you might have, as I've never sold a portable before. Any easy way to do a complete hardware check before I install the OS? Thanks.

[Speedy]

Leader!

[MGS_forgot_password]

Yep, cleaning cloth.

When you sell, be sure to report back how much you were able to sell it for. I've got an old first-gen Black MacBook and wonder if it has any value.

[hal]

"If someone is going to be happy enough with an older portable, they're probably not going to be doing any heavy lifting with it, and a 60GB drive might be sufficient."

this is wrong headed thinking... a hard drive does no lifting at all - it's just a reservoir. That little MB can at the very least hold a huge mp3 collection and can run the latest version of Office. This is all that most people want.

Put a reasonable price on it (under $300) and it'll be gone in a hurry...

[wurm]

MGS_forgot_password wrote:
When you sell, be sure to report back how much you were able to sell it for. I've got an old first-gen Black MacBook and wonder if it has any value.

Yeah, I'm sure I will. On eBay, they seem to be going for anywhere from $150-200 in various degrees of condition. I may even try Amazon, where there are about 5 used ones for sale, from a low of $327 to a high of (haha) $649. Of course, they may be asking those prices, but I don't see a way to check what anything actually sold for on Amazon.

** UPDATE **

I just checked eBay again. Looks like several sold for more than $300 in the past few months.

[edgarbc1]

leave the bigger hard drive in
more incentive to buy from potential buyers

[space-time]

60 GB is useless. Sell with 320.

[hal]

I would get $300 for it - guaranteed, but I'm really, really good at this...

[wurm]

Thanks for the recommendation to leave the bigger hard drive in place. That will make things a lot easier, as it means I can get it all wiped and set up tomorrow, since I've already put the old 60GB to use as a portable which I keep at work.

[wurm]

One more question. The install discs that came with the Macbook are for Leopard. Subsequently, I bought the Snow Leopard install discs and installed SL. I'm fine with including the original Leopard discs in the sale, but I want to hold onto the SL install discs, since my iMac can't go any farther anyway.

In that case, I'm guessing I should just do a fresh install of Leopard then, rather than upgrading to SL?