Help removing perspmal data from imac

Boot from the System disk that came with the computer, do an erase and install. I would recycle it. There is always some church, school, library or person who can use a free computer. Best wishes.

 

You could use SuperScrubber to really clean things off as best as practically possible. Erase and install won't thwart determined people, and if you've got banking details and other really personal stuff on there it might be better to be safe then sorry.

Here's a relevant article I was reading this morning.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=9276300&fsrc=RSS

 

It could be bad drivers for OS 9, allthough I am not an clasic expert so I may very well be wrong.

If the USB isnt working, you could try burining it to a CD, (if you have a CD burner) or even try creating a folder with all of your information on it, compress it if nessesary, then e-mail it to yourself, (to store it on your mail servers to download agian...I think gmail gives you 20mb attatchments) or try uploading it to a free servise like box.net, which offers a gig. of free storage. (there is a maximum file size of 10mb however, so you may need to break it up) Then on your new computer, just go and download your files.

Good luck.

 

You learned a good lesson from this...which is...


NEVER use "move" on important files. ALWAYS use copy and then delete the original files.

 

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I'm only partially kidding...if you're going to toss the computer anyway, take a sledgehammer to the drive.

 

You could also just borrow a retail OS X Cd, boot from it, and then use disk utility to zero out the drive.

 

There is no "Erase and Install" button on OS 9

On pre-OSX systems, you have to boot from the CD, manually open the Disk Utility / Drive Setup / HD Setup (name varies with different versions of the OS) from the Utilities folder on the CD, and Initialize / Erase / Format the drive, then do an OS installation.

When you drag a folder from one Volume to another Volume (as what would be the case 'moving' something to a USB drive) it always copies. The only time the OS moves volume to volume rather than copies is if you hold a modifier key down during the drag.

OP: did you delete the files from the hard drive? What evidence do you have that the folder is gone?

Your iMac is USB 1.1 - what does the USB key documentation say about compatibility with USB 1.1 and OS9? Did it come with any Extensions or drivers for Mac OS9? If so, did you install these?