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Need help securely wiping eMac HDDs

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Stryker412

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 23, 2012
6
0
Hello all, I have a bunch of emacs and old iMacs that I need to securely wipe before sending out to recycling. I'm new to the Mac environment and quickly discovered I could not boot to USB after I created a DBAN disk. All of the emacs do not have an optical drive to use a Tiger/Leopard disc from either. Can anyone recommend a quick way to securely wipe these computers without taking the HDDs out?
 
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Nameci

Nameci

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2010
1,944
12
The Philippines...
Stryker412 said:
Hello all, I have a bunch of emacs and old iMacs that I need to securely wipe before sending out to recycling. I'm new to the Mac environment and quickly discovered I could not boot to USB after I created a DBAN disk. All of the emacs do not have an optical drive to use a Tiger/Leopard disc from either. Can anyone recommend a quick way to securely wipe these computers without taking the HDDs out?
Click to expand...

Target Disk Mode.
 
S

Stryker412

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 23, 2012
6
0
I was able to find a firewire external HDD! Can anyone give some directions now on how I can create a bootable (I'm guessing) Leopard install so that I can use the disk utility to wipe these machines?

edit: Nevermind I completely misunderstood the first time what you were trying to tell me. I got it now, and am currently wiping the first computer. However, I would love to hear ideas on how to wipe more at one time if you have any. We have about 30 machines that need to be wiped so doing one at a time via Firewire will take a weeks.
 
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chibiterasu

chibiterasu

macrumors 6502
Apr 5, 2012
337
24
London, The United Kingdom
Then its going to be tough because if the macs don't like the usb stick then there not going to like a usb disc drive either. It might just be easier to remove the hard drives from the e-macs seeing as your just recycling them. Then you could just burn or smash up the drives.

Edit: Thanks for editing your post after I posted, you need another working mac for target disc mode. And your need a working mac and disc drive to install leopard on a external hard drive.
 
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Lil Chillbil

Lil Chillbil

macrumors 65816
Jan 30, 2012
1,322
99
California
chibiterasu said:
Then its going to be tough because if the macs don't like the usb stick then there not going to like a usb disc drive either. It might just be easier to remove the hard drives from the e-macs seeing as your just recycling them. Then you could just burn or smash up the drives.

Edit: Thanks for editing your post after I posted, you need another working mac for target disc mode. And your need a working mac and disc drive to install leopard on a external hard drive.
Click to expand...

I 2nd this, better yet the 4th of july is tommorow and emacs blow up interesting when you dowse them in gas and shoot em with a .22
 
S

Stryker412

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 23, 2012
6
0
Except we get paid for recycling them... :) It's not much but it's more money for our school.
 
B

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
Stryker412 said:
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We have about 30 machines that need to be wiped so doing one at a time via Firewire will take a weeks.
Click to expand...
If you have enough Firewire cables, put half of them in Target Disk Mode. After the first batch of machines is wiped, again wipe half the remaining machines. It'll still take a couple of days, but won't be as bad as doing one at a time.
 
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