How to securely wipe External Hard Drive before returning?

[oneinten]

Hello,

I've had my external HD for around for around 4 hours now and it's started grinding and making strange noises so I'm returning for a replacement. However, I already have hundreds of family photos and work documents on their that I want to erase (Securely)

I've used KillDisk on a Windows machine once before. How can I securely wipe all traces of data from it on my Mac before exchanging it?

Many thanks

 

[Macman45]

Step by step, although the drive may well die completely before the erase is completed...I wouldn't worry too much about you data though:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24002?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

[oneinten]

Step by step, although the drive may well die completely before the erase is completed...I wouldn't worry too much about you data though:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24002?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

haha brilliant, thanks for that. I'm fairly new to Mac's tools/utilities so I wasnt sure if I needed a 3rd party app. Will simply zero-ing out the disk with one pass of 0's be enough to wipe my pictures and documents from retrieval.

(not that I expect anyone to try.. but I'm a bit paranoid about identity theft these days)