Preparing for return

[Fiddler70]

Just as a precaution,

In what state do you guys bring back you iMac to the store?

Am worried about the data. Would like to erase the HDD, but how do I go about that? Mount as a FW drive on my MacBook Pro? Then Erase? Overwriting with 0's? How long would that take for 100 GB to be overwritten?

Then, to show any issues, the iMac should be working in the store, so I have to install Snow Leopard again? Need to show the Yellow tinge (of death).

Sorry for noob questions...

[Kebabselector]

My iMac took about an hour to zero out a 500gb hdd prior to it's return.

[powerbook911]

My iMac took about an hour to zero out a 500gb hdd prior to it's return.

it took about 1 hour 55 minutes for a 1 GB drive, so this sounds about right.

[Fiddler70]

Did you reinstall osX?

[wesleyh]

Boot from the install cd and go to system utility > disk. From there you can secure erase the HD. You can choose to do a 1 time pass of the HD with zeroes which will take about 3 hours for 1 TB. If you want absolute certainty you could do a 7 times pass. Afterwards, simply install os x again.

[IndustrialSpace]

Why? did you download THAT much porn? :eek:

I don't think the repair guys care much, as they do their own fair share of it themselves.

Cheers!


P.S. I once took a PC to a junk yard and had one of the monkeyshoist it up from a giantic magnet. Removed all the data successfully. YMMV

This might not be a good idea for a new iMac, though.

[Fiddler70]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Ar the iMac is Aluminum... maybe the magnet will not work?

And urm well had it for a day. Heck how much p**n can one download in a day over n 8 Mb connection ;-)

Is more about passwords and personal admin :-)

[steadcd]

2hrs to zero my 1gb for an i5 return

[Kebabselector]

Did you reinstall osX?

Yes, mainly incase the store want to test it. But they didn't, they just refunded me.