Remove Hard Drive Before Sending in for repairs

[ercanbas]

This post may be in the wrong spot and if it is I am sorry.

I have a sticky trackpad on my unibody Macbook. I received my box to send it in for repairs however I do not want to send in my hard drive being that I have sensitive data on there and they could easily work around my password if they really wanted to. Do you think I could just remove my hard drive and send it in? Is my hard drive necessary to send in?

 

[l.a.rossmann]

You could, but I highly doubt the wage slave is thinking about working around your password to get to data he could care less about. He's probably rushing through your machine so he can finish his work and go the **** home!

 

[ercanbas]

You could, but I highly doubt the wage slave is thinking about working around your password to get to data he could care less about. He's probably rushing through your machine so he can finish his work and go the **** home!

I have to send it in to the Texas repair center. I had an issue where my hard drive was corrupted when sent in so I am scared of that.

 

[5DollaFootlong]

backup your files and you won't have to risk losing your data.

 

[DaftUnion]

Use a external firewire drive and use either SuperDuper (personal choice) or Carbon Copy Cloner. Both free.

These will make an exact copy of everything on your hard drive and can be booted from if anything should go wrong.

 

[copykris]

maybe you should just keep your porn on an external hd in the first place...

 

[alphaod]

If you're very cautious, you'd need to install another hard drive in its place (basically you can't send the computer in with no hard drive) and do a fresh install of OS X on it.

maybe you should just keep your porn on an external hd in the first place...

I encrypt mine. I keep my OTP key on me at all times. I'm kidding. I don't encrypt my porn.

 

[melchior]

there have been many repeated cases showing the whole disk encryption is not as safe as it may seem.

that being said, make a copy of the drive and then secure erase your drive and install a fresh install. that being said, depending on how sensitive your data really is, even the secure erase options do not making it impossible to retrieve your data, if someone actually thought it was worth the effort.

i doubt they will.