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macOS Monterey Allows You to Erase a Mac Without Needing to Reinstall the Operating System

Is there an application, script or similar to do this (the best sanitation method for disks): duplicate large monolithic file (to speed up copying) like movie, until the disk is filled? This is the procedure:

1. Format disk.
2. Copy into it and duplicate large monolithic file (like movie) until the disk is filled with it. Probably, some free space will be left, so, continue copying-duplicating smaller file(s) until 0 bytes are left.
3. Unmount and mount the disk (that may show some free space), and repeat step 2, if needed, until 0 bytes are left.
4. Format disk (optional).

Note: the above method should work fine for old HFS+ disks. For new APFS disks, a method to randomly change the bits inside the file to copy in real time before duplicating it would be needed, since otherwise it will not be really duplicated.

That is the most convenient, quick and ecological method to sanitize a disk, using a single pass of writing data.
 
Freeangel1 said:
a-lot of these new features in Monterey are IOS features
Not that this is a bad feature. erasing user data and programs.
But once again. Every Year macOS is turning into IOS more and more.
I would not be surprised that when they are ready for Touch screens on Mac that macOS gets discarded in favor of IOS
Click to expand...
The most likely outcome imo is merging iPadOS and macOS together into a “desktopOS”, and you can install it on either mac or iPad and OS will optimise certain aspects based on the target device.
 
Marx55 said:
Is there an application, script or similar to do this (the best sanitation method for disks): duplicate large monolithic file (to speed up copying) like movie, until the disk is filled? This is the procedure:

1. Format disk.
2. Copy into it and duplicate large monolithic file (like movie) until the disk is filled with it. Probably, some free space will be left, so, continue copying-duplicating smaller file(s) until 0 bytes are left.
3. Unmount and mount the disk (that may show some free space), and repeat step 2, if needed, until 0 bytes are left.
4. Format disk (optional).

Note: the above method should work fine for old HFS+ disks. For new APFS disks, a method to randomly change the bits inside the file to copy in real time before duplicating it would be needed, since otherwise it will not be really duplicated.

That is the most convenient, quick and ecological method to sanitize a disk, using a single pass of writing data.
Click to expand...
Imo a specialised software that just zero out your entire disk through USB drive is the best option. Too bad that such option may not be possible unless the software can live inside macOS installer bootable USB.
 
This is nice and all but what i really would have liked to see Apple do is to let user delete pre-installed apps on the mac like Automator and Chess and all that crap i never ever use.
I get that it's free but the fact that Apple doesn't allow you to un-install these is just insane in my opinion.....but i'm probably the only one here that thinks this :oops:
 
Marx55 said:
Is there an application, script or similar to do this (the best sanitation method for disks): duplicate large monolithic file (to speed up copying) like movie, until the disk is filled? This is the procedure:

1. Format disk.
2. Copy into it and duplicate large monolithic file (like movie) until the disk is filled with it. Probably, some free space will be left, so, continue copying-duplicating smaller file(s) until 0 bytes are left.
3. Unmount and mount the disk (that may show some free space), and repeat step 2, if needed, until 0 bytes are left.
4. Format disk (optional).

Note: the above method should work fine for old HFS+ disks. For new APFS disks, a method to randomly change the bits inside the file to copy in real time before duplicating it would be needed, since otherwise it will not be really duplicated.
Click to expand...

dd (Unix) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

You could also use diskutil secureErase.

(However, all this is pointless as the data is encrypted and the keys are gone, which has already been pointed out multiple times. There seems to be a lot of confusion here regarding how encryption and read-only partitions work.)

Marx55 said:
That is the most convenient, quick and ecological method to sanitize a disk, using a single pass of writing data.
Click to expand...

If by that you mean convoluted, cumbersome, slow and insecure. 🙂

Shirasaki said:
Imo a specialised software that just zero out your entire disk through USB drive is the best option. Too bad that such option may not be possible unless the software can live inside macOS installer bootable USB.
Click to expand...

The installer has these tools, but you can also install a full macOS on an external drive and run whatever tools you need on the internal SSD from there.
 
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MacBH928 said:
I will be happy to tell you that there are people out there willing to buy used hard drive just to recover the data from them then blackmail the original user or use their credentials and data to make financial gain like credit card numbers or passwords
Click to expand...

Surely the blackmailer would qualify as a "certain criminal"
 
MacBH928 said:
I will wait until security researches prove that they can not recover previously made data on the computer.
Click to expand...

wanha said:
100%.

Will be interesting to see over the coming year if anyone can restore data deleted this way.
Click to expand...
Again, unless there is something Apple has implemented incorrectly, ie, the encryption keys are not destroyed properly or in a secure manner, it’s not going to be possible to read the disk in any meaningful sense. Encrypting something means just that. If the key to decrypt it no longer exists, then it cannot be read.

It is in fact far more secure then other methods including reformatting and multiple pass 0 writes. Both of those it remains possible in some case to recover data.
 
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BanjoDudeAhoy said:
Where do I find this in Windows?
It’s not Fresh Start, is it? That’s what came to mind first but it seems to keep user files rather than get rid of just them.
Click to expand...

It's Reset PC, inside of Windows Update & Recovery. Here's a helpful article about it:
How to refresh, reset, or restore your PC (microsoft.com)

You can Refresh, which saves your files, Reset which deletes everything and Recover, which brings it to a previous state.
 
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Arctic Moose said:

dd (Unix) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

You could also use diskutil secureErase.

(However, all this is pointless as the data is encrypted and the keys are gone, which has already been pointed out multiple times. There seems to be a lot of confusion here regarding how encryption and read-only partitions work.)



If by that you mean convoluted, cumbersome, slow and insecure. 🙂



The installer has these tools, but you can also install a full macOS on an external drive and run whatever tools you need on the internal SSD from there.
Click to expand...
The problem with all that is that those methods may leave some parts not truly erased, mostly in SSD. On the other hand, encryption may not be broken now, but could be tomorrow. Think about quantum computers are developments to come. That is why formatting a disk and filling it with a rubbish monolithic file like a movie the 1-2-3-4 method abobe) is the best option to make sure that all previous date are deleted forever. It will be impossible to recover such previous data, whatever new developments arise to decrypt passwords or whatever. And I said ecological because a single pass does it.
 
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Marx55 said:
The problem with all that is that those methods may leave some parts not truly erased, mostly in SSD. On the other hand, encryption may not be broken now, but could be tomorrow. Think about quantum computers are developments to come. That is why formatting a disk and filling it with a rubbish monolithic file like a movie the 1-2-3-4 method abobe) is the best option to make sure that all previous date are deleted forever. It will be impossible to recover such previous data, whatever new developments arise to decrypt passwords or whatever. And I said ecological because a single pass does it.
Click to expand...
I do not think you understand how dd or diskutil works, and that you are overestimating what your suggested method will accomplish.
 
ThaGoochiestMane said:
If the features have to be found doesn't that mean that the presentation was a "bust" (at least to a certain degree)?

Liking the features doesn't mean that they did a good job explaining/selling those features..
Click to expand...
Apple never talks about every new feature in a presentation. Would you rather be gad for this new feature or would you rather try and nitpick and prove my post wrong? You will have better results with the former.
 
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macintoshmac said:
I am inclined to think this is made to work with T1 and above, for whatever reasons. The option does not exist on a MacBook Air 2017. I am happy going into Recovery Mode, performing a "get destroy" command and starting fresh. Being doing that every year with new macOS release, it is almost second nature to me. Only two folders exist locally on my disk that require manual backup when I want to restore, the rest are all in iCloud. For my kind of use, I can work very fast this way without a hassle.

But, this is a great feature to have. It ought to have more security checks before proceeding the wipe though, lest some child with access wipes the parent's computer for fun. I am talking those annoying checks when you reinstall macOS from scratch and for activation it asks you for password and to key in a code sent to your other device and even key in the code you use to unlock your iPhone, et cetera. That would be life-saving in this case.
Click to expand...
That is a good point about double security check, especially with kids etc. I don’t need the feature but, I would also welcome it for peace of mind.
 
FightTheFuture said:
This is a welcome feature. But I would still feel more secure reformatting the disk under recovery mode.
Click to expand...
You probably haven't actually reformatted a disk in a long time, unless you've used one of the secure erase options, you've actually just been removing the directory listing while leaving all the data intact.
 
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Doesn’t sound like anyone here actually tried the “Erase all content and settings.” I did, and it had me enter my iCloud password (to sign out), then rebooted to some kind of recovery partition, and after a couple minutes of “spinning,” said my Mac was activated, then booted into the typical login screen with username and password fields.

No idea what to enter here. My original credentials don’t work so I guess the data was already erased. Rebooting only loops back to the login screen.

So if anyone has the same experience and finds a way past this login screen without re-installing macOS via USB, pls let me know.
 
MacBH928 said:
I will be happy to tell you that there are people out there willing to buy used hard drive just to recover the data from them then blackmail the original user or use their credentials and data to make financial gain like credit card numbers or passwords
Click to expand...

StellarVixen said:
No, it’s not, unless this feature overwrites the free space, which I’m sure it doesn’t.
Click to expand...

Brute-forcing the encryption key is impractical, and on top of that, you can't even do that as the controller throttles your attempts.

You could manually remove the flash storage, but at that point, you risk losing all data, and you'd still have to brute-force.
 
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This should make it easy for anyone selling their computer. Very useful feature.
 
If you’re playing around with the beta, please make sure you’re doing so on a spare or dedicated test machine. I’m running the developer beta on my spare 2018 15” MacBook Pro and wanted to test this out. Process was going smooth, until a reboot. Now the machines stuck at the Apple logo on boot. Getting in to Recovery is not working. Going to see if I can use AC2 to recover it.
 
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