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redAPPLE

macrumors 68030
Original poster
May 7, 2002
2,675
5
2 Much Infinite Loops
hi.

i will be placing my fw400 hard drive in eBay very soon. i have erased the data with the "secure empty trash" option in os x.3.

have you guys by any chance have read, that data can still be recovered even after using "secure empty"?

is there a better way to remove data from the hard drive?

suggestions would be very appreciated. thanks.
 

varmit

macrumors 68000
Aug 5, 2003
1,830
0
Use disk utility

redAPPLE said:
hi.

i will be placing my fw400 hard drive in eBay very soon. i have erased the data with the "secure empty trash" option in os x.3.

have you guys by any chance have read, that data can still be recovered even after using "secure empty"?

is there a better way to remove data from the hard drive?

suggestions would be very appreciated. thanks.

The secure empty trash, it writes random bits over the area that your data was on like 20 times. So I would say its pretty secure. To make sure, go ahead and use Disk Utility after the secure empty and format the disk. The secure empty will delete the data to a point of really no chance of recovery, then formating the disk will then make it even tougher to get what information was on there.
 

rainman::|:|

macrumors 603
Feb 2, 2002
5,438
2
iowa
Secure Deleting files will be safe enough for eBay, yes. HOWEVER. Any files you deleted previously, without doing Secure Delete, could still be there. There's probably a ton of stuff in your "free space" still floating around. You need to zero the drive, which takes for-freaking-ever and is easiest done by formatting the disk. There are ways to zero the disk without formatting, but they involve 3rd party apps like Norton Speed Disk.

paul
 

jholzner

macrumors 65816
Jul 24, 2002
1,385
21
Champaign, IL
redAPPLE said:
hi.

i will be placing my fw400 hard drive in eBay very soon. i have erased the data with the "secure empty trash" option in os x.3.

have you guys by any chance have read, that data can still be recovered even after using "secure empty"?

is there a better way to remove data from the hard drive?

suggestions would be very appreciated. thanks.

I'm pretty sure the feature meets government standards for secure deletion. I think apple basically added this feature to get into gov't contracts.
 

crazzyeddie

macrumors 68030
Dec 7, 2002
2,792
1
Florida, USA
What you need to do is use Disk Utility to erase the disk and write zero's. This wipes all data permanently (except for magnetic traces, which only people like the FBI can detect).
 

superbovine

macrumors 68030
Nov 7, 2003
2,872
0
i agree with all the previous post, if you want to see for yourself download from recover software from download.com and do a test. make two files. delete 1 with secure delete and 1 with by just emptying the trash. after that try and recover the files. install your recovery software first.
 

James L

macrumors 6502a
Apr 14, 2004
850
1
Disc utility, the options to format the drive, write the zero's 8 times, etc.

It took hours, and I do mean hours, to do this to an 80 GB drive... I am sure it was secure!
 

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5
Jun 6, 2003
12,110
77
Solon, OH
If you REALLY want to be secure, check both the "Zero All Data" and "8-way Random Write Format" boxes in Disk Utility when formatting the disk. Although this method is the most secure, it will take a VERY long time to format the disk and zero out the data. (Note: I believe the 8-way random write format option only exists in the Panther version of Disk Utility.)
 

James L

macrumors 6502a
Apr 14, 2004
850
1
wrldwzrd89 said:
If you REALLY want to be secure, check both the "Zero All Data" and "8-way Random Write Format" boxes in Disk Utility when formatting the disk. Although this method is the most secure, it will take a VERY long time to format the disk and zero out the data. (Note: I believe the 8-way random write format option only exists in the Panther version of Disk Utility.)


Thanks, that's what I was trying to say but I couldn't remember the correct terms. It took hours to do it to my drive.

Cheers!
 
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