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

Uhhh Help! Did i Erase My Macbook Air Drive Correctly?? It took like 3 seconds.

V

VideoNewbie

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 6, 2009
476
6
I held down command + r during reboot and it went into disk utility

i selected the first drive i see it says "121 gb apple SSD" and i clicked on "Erase" it literally took all but 5 seconds to erase the drive

i then clicked the other drive on the drop down menu right underneath ssd and i clicked erase same thing only a couple seconds...i now see that this drive is named "untitled" but yet it still says it has "3 folders and 2 files" what? how does it have anything when i already erased it?

i see anothr drive that says "disk1" it has an orange "mac osx base systems" im assuming this is the operating system. the erase is greyedout

i was anticipating that this secure erase would take at least an hour

the fact that it was so quick leaves me uneasy .

i am returning this macbook air so i want to be sure everything is off it
 
I don't believe OS X support "secure erase" with an SSD. Was the drive encrypted? If so, a quick format should be sufficient, since even if the next person is able to access the data, it would still be encrypted.
 
I think you may be a tad over-paranoid on the matter. I'd say erasing it will suffice. Reinstall the OS and check to make sure everything is gone, and you should be good to go.
 
VideoNewbie said:
I held down command + r during reboot and it went into disk utility

i selected the first drive i see it says "121 gb apple SSD" and i clicked on "Erase" it literally took all but 5 seconds to erase the drive

i then clicked the other drive on the drop down menu right underneath ssd and i clicked erase same thing only a couple seconds...i now see that this drive is named "untitled" but yet it still says it has "3 folders and 2 files" what? how does it have anything when i already erased it?

i see anothr drive that says "disk1" it has an orange "mac osx base systems" im assuming this is the operating system. the erase is greyedout

i was anticipating that this secure erase would take at least an hour

the fact that it was so quick leaves me uneasy .

i am returning this macbook air so i want to be sure everything is off it
Click to expand...

Did you zero out the data? If not, it would be extremely fast. If you zero out the data, depending on the number of passes, it will take take a lot longer.
 
Do you want to erase it do that you can perform a clean re-install, or because you're selling the computer and you don't want anyone to obtain your data, using data recovery tools?
 
Alameda said:
Do you want to erase it do that you can perform a clean re-install, or because you're selling the computer and you don't want anyone to obtain your data, using data recovery tools?
Click to expand...


i want to erase it bc i dont want anyone to obtain data using data recovery tools.

how would i do this?

i held down command & r and the options it gave me for erasing only took like 3 seconds.

----------
gmanist1000 said:
Did you zero out the data? If not, it would be extremely fast. If you zero out the data, depending on the number of passes, it will take take a lot longer.
Click to expand...


i thought that zero out the data is not an option for macbook air w ssd drive?
 
VideoNewbie said:
i want to erase it bc i dont want anyone to obtain data using data recovery tools.

how would i do this?
Click to expand...

As we told you in the other thread, the best option is to encrypt the drive and then format it. For good measure, encrypt it, write some dummy data on it to fill up the drive, and then format it, though that isn't really necessary.
 
Re-launch Disk Utility, click the drive you want to erase, and before you click the Erase button, click the button to its left, labeled Security Options. Drag the slider a notch or two to the right (35 passes is WAY too many), and then erase the drive.
 
Alameda said:
Re-launch Disk Utility, click the drive you want to erase, and before you click the Erase button, click the button to its left, labeled Security Options. Drag the slider a notch or two to the right (35 passes is WAY too many), and then erase the drive.
Click to expand...

i cant do that.

the security options is greyed out on my 2012 macbook air.
how do i ungrey it?
 
VideoNewbie said:
i cant do that.

the security options is greyed out on my 2012 macbook air.
how do i ungrey it?
Click to expand...

You can't. That's why we have said before that the best option is to encrypt the drive using FileVault2, and then format it. Actually, in your case, you can go into Disk Utility, and just format it as an encrypted volume directly. Write a bunch of dummy data if you want, and then reformat it. Any data should effectively be unrecoverable at that point.
 
KPOM said:
Actually, in your case, you can go into Disk Utility, and just format it as an encrypted volume directly. Write a bunch of dummy data if you want, and then reformat it. Any data should effectively be unrecoverable at that point.
Click to expand...



i didnt encrypt it before i deleted it. is that going to be a problem?

i am now in disk utility. i formatted it doing "journal, encrypted"
it still only took like 3 seconds to do

and why does it say that my drive has a 120.84 capacity and that only 120.62 is available?
where is that extra memory coming from? it also says there are 3 folders and 2 files left on the drive. this is after i erased the drive..?

----------

also i see an "os x base system" can i delete this? is there any personal information in there?
 
Last edited:
VideoNewbie said:
i didnt encrypt it before i deleted it. is that going to be a problem?

i am now in disk utility. i formatted it doing "journal, encrypted"
it still only took like 3 seconds to do.
Click to expand...

My suggestion would be to fill the drive with dummy data. You probably don't need to, but since didn't encrypt it before, it won't hurt. Then once it's full, you can reformat it.
 
KPOM said:
My suggestion would be to fill the drive with dummy data. You probably don't need to, but since didn't encrypt it before, it won't hurt. Then once it's full, you can reformat it.
Click to expand...


how do i fill it with dummy data?
 
Copy a huge movie to the drive and duplicate it until you can't duplicate it anymore.
 
Alameda said:
Copy a huge movie to the drive and duplicate it until you can't duplicate it anymore.
Click to expand...

And when you get your new Air the first thing you're going to do is encrypt it with Filevault2 now that you've learned your lesson.
 
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