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Disk Utility Now Allowing Me To Erase My Hard Drive! (I Then want to Install Leopard)

HappyDude20

HappyDude20

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
3,688
1,479
Los Angeles, Ca
I got my Macbook Pro today in the mail and used my 500GB Western Digital hard drive as an external drive.

Mainly for only 2 reasons:

1. To grab all the files I need/don't want to lose (photos, music, documents, etc.)

2. Then completely erase the 500GB HD so I can then install it into the new Macbook Pro and install Leopard.

(I'll then externally connect the 160GB HD that came w/ my Macbook Pro and add the files I've already copied into that 160GB HD into the 500GB Leopard installed HD in the new Macbook Pro)

So, currently my 500GB HD is connected to my Macbook pro and I want to completely erase everything so I'll then have a completely clean hard drive, to then install into the Macbook Pro, add the installation discs and install Leopard into the 500GB HD.

But disk utility here on this MAcbook PRo is not allowing me to do this. At least, I've never done this before so can't be sure...

I don't know what to do, any help is really appreciated.

As a side note, how long would 35-zero out erasing feature take? 150GB is used on that 500GB HD, if it matters.
 
HappyDude20 said:
I got my Macbook Pro today in the mail and used my 500GB Western Digital hard drive as an external drive.

Mainly for only 2 reasons:

1. To grab all the files I need/don't want to lose (photos, music, documents, etc.)

2. Then completely erase the 500GB HD so I can then install it into the new Macbook Pro and install Leopard.

(I'll then externally connect the 160GB HD that came w/ my Macbook Pro and add the files I've already copied into that 160GB HD into the 500GB Leopard installed HD in the new Macbook Pro)

So, currently my 500GB HD is connected to my Macbook pro and I want to completely erase everything so I'll then have a completely clean hard drive, to then install into the Macbook Pro, add the installation discs and install Leopard into the 500GB HD.

But disk utility here on this MAcbook PRo is not allowing me to do this. At least, I've never done this before so can't be sure...

I don't know what to do, any help is really appreciated.

As a side note, how long would 35-zero out erasing feature take? 150GB is used on that 500GB HD, if it matters.
Click to expand...

35? Are you nuts? 7 is 99.9% safe from being recovered. It takes very expensive devices to recover anything from a drive that has had 7 overwrites. 1 Overwrite is plenty

Did you try putting the drive in the MBP, then running the leopard disk and doing an erase and install. That will be fine for what you're doing. You only "need" multiple overwrites if you need a secure erase
 
kryptonianjorel said:
35? Are you nuts? 7 is 99.9% safe from being recovered. It takes very expensive devices to recover anything from a drive that has had 7 overwrites. 1 Overwrite is plenty

Did you try putting the drive in the MBP, then running the leopard disk and doing an erase and install. That will be fine for what you're doing. You only "need" multiple overwrites if you need a secure erase
Click to expand...

I'm glad you brought this to mind.

So, I read up on the forums and won't go up to 35. 7 if anything..

..But what i'm now wondering is...

..if I pop in the 500GB HD into the new MAcbook Pro and pop in the leopard discs, it will give me the option of "erase & install" right? Well, how secure is this? As secure as it being overwritten 7 times?

Whats the difference between just installing the leopard install disc with the 500GB HD in the macbook pro and overwriting it 7 times 1st as an external hard drive?
 
HappyDude20 said:
I'm glad you brought this to mind.

So, I read up on the forums and won't go up to 35. 7 if anything..

..But what i'm now wondering is...

..if I pop in the 500GB HD into the new MAcbook Pro and pop in the leopard discs, it will give me the option of "erase & install" right? Well, how secure is this? As secure as it being overwritten 7 times?

Whats the difference between just installing the leopard install disc with the 500GB HD in the macbook pro and overwriting it 7 times 1st as an external hard drive?
Click to expand...

Depends on what type of "secure" you need. If you're selling it and you're paranoid, then no, erase and install isnt gonna do the trick. When a hard drive is overwritten, it leaves a magnetic mark, that can, using very powerful and expensive devices, can be restored. This is expensive and difficult, so its only used by the police and such. A single overwrite will prevent any old Joe Shmo from getting your old data tho.

If its performance your worried about, erase and install is all you need
 
kryptonianjorel said:
Depends on what type of "secure" you need. If you're selling it and you're paranoid, then no, erase and install isnt gonna do the trick. When a hard drive is overwritten, it leaves a magnetic mark, that can, using very powerful and expensive devices, can be restored. This is expensive and difficult, so its only used by the police and such. A single overwrite will prevent any old Joe Shmo from getting your old data tho.

If its performance your worried about, erase and install is all you need
Click to expand...

Ok, hmm. Well then, I was about to go ahead and install the 500GB HD into the new Macbook Pro...But thinking i'd rather overwrite the 500GB HD first, even if it is overwritten just once.

But Disk Utility is still preventing me from doing this.
 

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Well it won't unmount. Are you running a program from it or is anything at all trying to use it? You really don't need to do it in OSX. Really, if you put it in the MBP, it'll work and you wont have this problem at all
 
kryptonianjorel said:
Well it won't unmount. Are you running a program from it or is anything at all trying to use it? You really don't need to do it in OSX. Really, if you put it in the MBP, it'll work and you wont have this problem at all
Click to expand...

hmm. But i won't get at least that 1 pass overwrite security if i just pop it in the mbp right? Or will it?
 
HappyDude20 said:
hmm. But i won't get at least that 1 pass overwrite security if i just pop it in the mbp right? Or will it?
Click to expand...

So its going now, 1 pass of 7.

So I'm good right? Now it's just the waiting game?

Does it matter it sais GUID Partition Scheme? Iono, i just remember hearing a lot of people going through troubles and the mention of GUID Partition Scheme.

Either way, its doing it.

Out of curiousity now, how long might this take? 7 passes, 500gb HD, 150GB's used/taken up.

& once that's done all I gotta do is pop it in the mbp and put in the installation discs right?

Simple as pie right? :eek:
 
HappyDude20 said:
So its going now, 1 pass of 7.

So I'm good right? Now it's just the waiting game?

Does it matter it sais GUID Partition Scheme? Iono, i just remember hearing a lot of people going through troubles and the mention of GUID Partition Scheme.

Either way, its doing it.

Out of curiousity now, how long might this take? 7 passes, 500gb HD, 150GB's used/taken up.

& once that's done all I gotta do is pop it in the mbp and put in the installation discs right?

Simple as pie right? :eek:
Click to expand...

When overwriting, it doesn't know nor care how much is being used. It has to rewrite your 500 GB 7 times, so its writing a null character to your entire hard drive 7 times, aka 3.5 TB worth of data.

I don't know how long it'll take, but I did a low-level format once, 3 passes on a 20 GB drive and it took over 4 hours
 
kryptonianjorel said:
When overwriting, it doesn't know nor care how much is being used. It has to rewrite your 500 GB 7 times, so its writing a null character to your entire hard drive 7 times, aka 3.5 TB worth of data.

I don't know how long it'll take, but I did a low-level format once, 3 passes on a 20 GB drive and it took over 4 hours
Click to expand...

I've decided to zero-out pass rather than 7 times.

This is great, thanks!
 
kryptonianjorel said:
Thought you would
Click to expand...

:)

Woke up in the morning to find it completed in disk utility, all i gott do now...is go to Home Depot or somewhere to buy the torx 6 screwdriver for those little screw/bolts on the side of the hard drive.

I was excited last night so i opened the macbook pro and that part was what stopped me. I was impressed though by the thinness of the bottom plate and how everything was laid out inside the macbook pro, compared with every time i'd go in and open up my whitebook.

f*cking Home Depot. Gonna get take care of that now.
 
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