Can Find My Mac still persist after erasing the hard drive?

I have recently acquired a MacBook Air 2011 off of ebay. In order to avoid second-hand Mac issues relating to iCloud remote shut downs, I have performed the following actions:

  • Secure erase (using parted magic), deleted old partition and created a new partition (using gparted).

  • Cleared PRAM/NVRAM using keyboard procedure a few times, after HD was already wiped.

  • Installed Ubuntu (I will be using Ubuntu, and maybe Windows through VB).

Is there any way that Find My Mac capabilities could have persisted, and would it be able to shut me down if I connect the MacBook to the internet and the seller (or sellers seller) decides to lock the device on iCloud?.

The device does not currently have any type of lock, nor did it have it when I received it, as I was able to plug in a USB and boot parted magic. A quick inquiry: I would be able to tell for sure if the device is FMM locked when I connect to the internet, correct? If FMM capabilities are still in order, the laptop would be tracked/locked (if so was the command), even if it was running Ubuntu?


There is a simple way to find out who is the owner of the computer as reported to Find my Mac.

In terminal use

nvram -p | grep fmm

If it is your name there then you are fine.