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Erasing A Powerbook harddrive?

V

vwcruisn

macrumors regular
Original poster
The logic board on my powerbook is fried. I have dissasembled the unit and have been parting it out. I have a few buyers for the harddrive, but I don't want to sell it with all of my data on it. Is there a way to erase all of the data on this drive?
 
Magnets my friend, lots and lots of magnets 😛

But really, as eva01 said put it in an enclosure, wait for it to mount, open Disk Utility and write zeros to it.
 
vwcruisn said:
Sorry, im not toally computer savy,... what do you mean by an enclosure?
Click to expand...

an enclosure is something you would buy at your local electronics store that can hold a HD. As in you know your external HDs, well it is basically an enclosure with a drive in it.

So you can go buy an enclosure (make sure it is for a laptop HD 2.5" i believe) and install the HD connect it to a computer and format it


Example
 
just out of curiosity... will i be able to get and data off the drive? I had not backed up the drive for a few months when the logic board failed. Will using an enclosure allow me to rescue any of the data?
 
vwcruisn said:
just out of curiosity... will i be able to get and data off the drive? I had not backed up the drive for a few months when the logic board failed. Will using an enclosure allow me to rescue any of the data?
Click to expand...
Yes, when you plug it into the enclosure it will mount up on your desktop just like it would in the dead PowerBook.
 
Yes. Just make sure you buy an enclosure which is meant for your specific drive type (guessing to be 2.5" ATA) and which has connections you can use (Firewire if possible, USB if not - but don't get USB if all you have is a USB 1.1 port, as it'll take forever). You should be able to connect and access your drive in a matter of ten minutes or less.

As you'll then have an external drive, don't buy the cheapest p.o.s. enclosure you can find, sine you'll be able to use it until the drive dies, but there's no need to go all out and spend over $100 on something like that. newegg.com has a bunch of options, as likely does your local computer store.
 
jsw said:
Yes. Just make sure you buy an enclosure which is meant for your specific drive type (guessing to be 2.5" ATA) and which has connections you can use (Firewire if possible, USB if not - but don't get USB if all you have is a USB 1.1 port, as it'll take forever). You should be able to connect and access your drive in a matter of ten minutes or less.
Click to expand...
Just take the drive with you to where you buy it and ask them what you need for it.
 
does anyone know if the drive is a serial ata? (SATA) I dont think it is, but i need to make sure before I order.


Thanks
 
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