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Help removing perspmal data from imac

N

Norwood

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hi,

I am getting rid of my old imac - runs on OS9. Can anyone help me out with a step by step guide of how to clean it of personal data before I ger rid of it?

Also - what is the best thing to do with it? Dump it? Recyle?

Thanks!
 
Norwood said:
I am getting rid of my old imac - runs on OS9. Can anyone help me out with a step by step guide of how to clean it of personal data before I ger rid of it?

Also - what is the best thing to do with it? Dump it? Recyle?
Click to expand...

Boot from the System disk that came with the computer, do an erase and install. I would recycle it. There is always some church, school, library or person who can use a free computer. Best wishes.
 
Thank you both for your advice - that's really helpful.

In the meantime I have bought a memory stick to transfer files. I put it ion and transferred a folder, then got repeated messages saying something was wrong and that data may be lost. Yep - a whole folder of my work has disappeared. I am now scared to put anything else on it. Is this the stick or the mac. I am inclined to think the latter as nothing on it seems to work these days. How am I going to get my info onto the new computer?/??

Thanks
 
Norwood said:
Thank you both for your advice - that's really helpful.

In the meantime I have bought a memory stick to transfer files. I put it ion and transferred a folder, then got repeated messages saying something was wrong and that data may be lost. Yep - a whole folder of my work has disappeared. I am now scared to put anything else on it. Is this the stick or the mac. I am inclined to think the latter as nothing on it seems to work these days. How am I going to get my info onto the new computer?/??

Thanks
Click to expand...

It could be bad drivers for OS 9, allthough I am not an clasic expert so I may very well be wrong.

If the USB isnt working, you could try burining it to a CD, (if you have a CD burner) or even try creating a folder with all of your information on it, compress it if nessesary, then e-mail it to yourself, (to store it on your mail servers to download agian...I think gmail gives you 20mb attatchments) or try uploading it to a free servise like box.net, which offers a gig. of free storage. (there is a maximum file size of 10mb however, so you may need to break it up) Then on your new computer, just go and download your files.

Good luck. 😉
 
You learned a good lesson from this...which is...


NEVER use "move" on important files. ALWAYS use copy and then delete the original files.
 
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I'm only partially kidding...if you're going to toss the computer anyway, take a sledgehammer to the drive.
 
StealthRider said:
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I'm only partially kidding...if you're going to toss the computer anyway, take a sledgehammer to the drive.
Click to expand...

You could also just borrow a retail OS X Cd, boot from it, and then use disk utility to zero out the drive.
 
emptyCup said:
Boot from the System disk that came with the computer, do an erase and install.
Click to expand...

There is no "Erase and Install" button on OS 9

On pre-OSX systems, you have to boot from the CD, manually open the Disk Utility / Drive Setup / HD Setup (name varies with different versions of the OS) from the Utilities folder on the CD, and Initialize / Erase / Format the drive, then do an OS installation.

NEVER use "move" on important files. ALWAYS use copy and then delete the original files.
Click to expand...

When you drag a folder from one Volume to another Volume (as what would be the case 'moving' something to a USB drive) it always copies. The only time the OS moves volume to volume rather than copies is if you hold a modifier key down during the drag.

OP: did you delete the files from the hard drive? What evidence do you have that the folder is gone?

Your iMac is USB 1.1 - what does the USB key documentation say about compatibility with USB 1.1 and OS9? Did it come with any Extensions or drivers for Mac OS9? If so, did you install these?
 
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