Erasing Hard Drive

[Braveheart]

Hi

I'm selling my Powerbook G4 with an 80gb hard drive and want to wipe it before I send it to it's new owner. I think a single pass should be enough as I don't really have any sensitive data on it. Can someone give me an idea as to how long a single pass erase might take?

Cheers

 

[bobber205]

Partioning a hard drive. Seconds.

It doesn't take long at all. I've done it at work dozens of times.

 

[840quadra]

Hi

I'm selling my Powerbook G4 with an 80gb hard drive and want to wipe it before I send it to it's new owner. I think a single pass should be enough as I don't really have any sensitive data on it. Can someone give me an idea as to how long a single pass erase might take?

Cheers

I would seriously consider doing a 7 pass as a minimum. It should take less than a half hour, and it will be good enough to ensure files are non restorable.

You would be surprised as to how much can be achieved by getting small bits of information about someone. The extra few minutes is good peace of mind, and worth the time.

 

[dirtleg]

I have been wondering the same thing.
We are soon upgrading our old G3 to a new 24" iMac and I want to wipe the hard drive on the old one.
Is this something that is done from disk utilities in OSX? Or do we need to start up from the CD and do it from there? I think I know the answer, but I would like some reassurance from some one with more knowledge than I

Thanks in advance.

 

[CyberB0b]

Or do we need to start up from the CD and do it from there?

Yes, you need to boot an operating system from CD and format the hard drive from there. Doing a format + clean install of OS X is good enough for non-paranoid people.

Me, I boot the Ubuntu CD and use the shred command.