Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Secure Erase Question- Selling my mac later today please respond asap

BaronvdB

BaronvdB

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hey guys, i'm meeting the guy to trade my imac at 11am EST and I just started the secure erase process. I chose the 7 pass option and it says pass 1 of 7 5 hours remaing--here's the question:

Does it mean 5 hours remaining for the 1st pass or 5 hours remaining before all 7 passes are complete? If it takes 5 hours per pass I don't have time--what do I do then? Can I stop in the middle and chose to zero out data?

If it does mean 5 hours for all 7 passes doesn't that seem kinda fast?

Thanks for the fast responses--i would love to go to bed while it's erasing (almost 2am now)
 
jmann said:
I think 7 pass was overkill. A regular simple erase would've sufficed.
Click to expand...

Yeah...too bad a read that in a few other posts saying that after I already started the 7 pass process...do you know the answer to the main question? Does is mean 5 hours for all 7 passes?
 
It depends on the size of your hard drive.

I just did a 7-pass erase on my iBook's 120 GB hdd, and it took about 5 hours total.
 
Alright...i just hit skip and went back and I'm doing a zero out erase instead of the 7 pass....hopefully this dude I'm trading with isn't some type of data recovery expert or something
 
BaronvdB said:
holy crap...3 days!?!? that's retarded...that can't be normal
Click to expand...

It is normal. Took me 7 hours to do 3 low-level formats on an old 20GB hard drive

One pass is enough, under every circumstance, 1 pass is enough. Unless you're being tracked by the FBI for kiddie porn, or have the blueprints to the military's newest fighter plane, 1 pas is plenty.

It costs lots and lots of money to bring back data that has been overwritten (they have to use a magnetic machine that determines the strength of the residual magnetic polarity of the bits)

I pray that whoever needs to secure erase finds this forum so it can be put to rest once and for all 😀
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back