Erase Hard Drive Mac Os X 10.5.8
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- How To Erase Hard Drive Mac Os X 10.6.8
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Hannah, the manager of our Burlington retail store recently decided to upgrade her Core Duo black MacBook to a Core 2 Duo black MacBook. First, she used Migration Assistant and a firewire cable to move everything from the old Mac to the new Mac. Migration Assistant is included with OS 10.4 – it can be found in the Utilities folder which is nested in the Applications folder.
Next, Hannah needed to erase the old MacBook’s hard drive, and reinstall a fresh copy of the operating system (OS). The OS installation disks that came with your Mac (sometimes called the Software Restore disks) or a OS 10.4 Install disk is required to do this.
Most people simply install a fresh copy of the OS over the old copy of the OS. This has the effect of overwriting and obscuring / erasing their old data. To do this, pop in the OS install DVD that came with the computer (or a purchased copy of the OS), restart the Mac holding down the “C” key, and follow the onscreen installation instructions – making sure to choose “Erase and Install” when it comes time to actually install the operating system.
However, Hannah wanted to be sure that her old data was really erased. Thus, she decided to first erase the MacBook’s hard drive before installing the new OS. Again, pop the OS installation DVD into your Mac’s optical drive. Restart the Mac while holding down the “C” key. This time choose “Open Disk Utility” on the menu bar from the Installer menu. In Disk Utility, select your Mac’s hard-drive icon in the left column. Click the Erase tab, then click the “Security Options” button.
Now you can choose to Zero Out Data, which provides good security in minimal time, 7-Pass Erase, which writes data over the entire disk seven times (and takes seven times longer than the Zero Out Option), and even a 35-Pass Erase option – which would take a very long time, would be extremely secure, and is great for very paranoid people.
6) In the erase tab you will see the Format section. Next to this option is the dropdown from where you can choose how you wish to format the drive. For instance, if you wish to use the drive only for one of the Mac OS versions, select Mac OS Extended. If you wish to install the Windows OS on the hard drive, then choose MS-DOS (FAT). In order to permanently delete files or erase hard drive under Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, you need to download data erasure software for OS X 10.10 Yosemite. AweEraser for Mac is a good choice. It supports to permanently delete files in OS X 10.10 Yosemite, erase hard drive under OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
Why the different security options? When a hard drive is “erased” most of the time the old data is not really erased, but set aside to be written over on an as-needed basis. If you never actually write over the old data, it is still there – ready to be recovered by scheming people.
To truly erase a drive so that no one else can recover old data, new data (random data, a meaningless stream of 1’s and 0’s) needs to be written over it multiple times. When erasing a Mac’s hard dive prior to a new OS installation, most people will be fine choosing “Zero Out Data,” and then re-installing the OS. However, doctors, lawyers, accountants, and spies should probably choose 7-Pass Erase before reinstalling the OS.
Erase Hard Drive Mac Os X 10.5.88
It does take a couple hours to securely erase your hard drive and install a fresh copy of the OS – but if you have sensitive data, it’s worth the trouble.
Susan Lawlor writes in with a common problem:
I’m trying to securely erase my poor sad iMac before donating or recycling it. It’s my old workhorse—running 10.6.8. Disk Utility’s Erase Security Options is grayed out. I have no OS X disk, and there’s no Recovery HD.
It’s admirable to erase your system before you sell—especially with secure erasure—to avoid leaking personal data to someone who buys it or obtains the disk drive. While the odds are likely very low someone would be able to extract data (or be interested in it), you can try to reduce those odds to what is effectively zero.
Susan has a number of options of how to proceed, but there’s a bit of navigation along the way. She’s running 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), which didn’t include Recovery HD. Security Options in her version of Disk Utility is grayed, because you can’t erase a disk from its startup volume. (That option is always unavailable for SSDs, but an older iMac won’t have an SSD.)
Here are the easiest ways to erase that drive securely by degree of difficulty:
Use Target Disk Mode. With two Macs that both have Thunderbolt or FireWire ports, connect them with the appropriate cable, and follow Apple’s instructions (either hold down the T key after restarting the one to erase or use Startup Disk on that computer before restarting it). The Mac to erase mounts as a drive, and Disk Utility can be used with it.
Install OSX on an external drive or borrow one with OS X installed. Booting off that drive will also allow erasing via Disk Utility.
Upgrade to a newer version of OS X and use Recovery HD. Snow Leopard with the Mac App Store installed should let you download at no cost a later version of OS X. All versions after Snow Leopard include and will install Recovery HD, from which you can then boot and run
How To Erase Hard Drive Mac Os X 10.6.8
iMac models released starting in 2010 can use Internet Recovery, but first have to be upgraded at least to Lion and some need a firmware update installed, so that’s not the simplest path to pursue.
A related question came in from Becky Steinke, who was trying to erase a 2008 MacBook. She tried to use the Recovery HD startup (holding down Command-R after restarting) and had no luck. Every 2008 and later MacBook Pro and MacBook can install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which should be able to install the Recovery partition. If possible, upgrade it to Lion, restart, and use Recovery HD to erase, or use one of the other options above.
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Erase Hard Drive Mac Os X 10.5.8download For Mac Os X 10 5 8
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