Erasing a PBG4 for selling

[iveast]

Getting rid of a 12" PBG4 1.33ghz, but I seem to have misplaced the original startup discs. It is running OSX10.5.8 now and only has a cd drive. Its been pretty slow this past year, and I have been meaning to do a full erase and fresh install, but I wasn't really sure if 10.5 is the best OS for the machine. Should I try and track down a 10.4 cd to do a fresh install before I sell it? OR, how can I simply wipe the drive without messing with the OS - that way I can sell it with 10.5.8 and whoever buys it can do what they like.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Clete2]

You should really format it by overwriting the entire drive multiple times. I don't know if the OSX install DVD includes any of these techniques, but there is a lot of software out there that does.

For security reasons, you want to have the drive as unreadable as possible before installing a fresh OS.

When you delete files, the filesystem marks the sectors where the information resides physically as "deleted," but it does not actually erase the data. Even after writing over everything on the drive, it is possible to recover some of the data with the right tools.

In short:
1) Use drive wiping software to entirely erase the drive multiple times
2) Install OS X
3) Profit!! (ship)

 

[iveast]

Clete2 - in order to do what you are suggesting, I still need to have a startup disc. If I acquire a startup disc, I could simply wipe the drive with discutility before install, no? Is it right for me to go back to OSX10.4? I mean, does a PBG4 run better on 10.4 than on 10.5?

 

[DavieBoy]

What I would suggest is fire-wiring the powerbook into a newer computer with a dvd drive.

open disc utility on the newer computer and select the drive from the old one. You can do a 7 pass delete which will take a while but does a pretty good job of erasing your data. Then you can put a retail osx dvd in the new computer and install to the targeted drive.

I would suggest 10.4, it is what I have on my powerbooks.

 

[rhysmorgan]

I was going to suggest Darik's Boot and Nuke, but then I remembered, you can zero an HDD using the Mac OS X install disc.