Bobby T

Q: My Data Cannot Be Recovered, Right?

So I have a laptop a couple of years old I no longer need, so my intent is to sell/give it away.

 

I see that Disk Utility no longer has a secure format option, so I had no choice but to do a regular format.

 

Seeing as this option is now gone, my previous data is completely safe right?

 

Apple wouldn't just take this feature away resulting in countless people risking breach of their data would they?  Because that would be almost criminal...

Posted on Dec 12, 2015 9:38 PM

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Q: My Data Cannot Be Recovered, Right?

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  • by FishingAddict,

    FishingAddict FishingAddict Dec 12, 2015 10:12 PM in response to Bobby T
    Level 4 (1,549 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 12, 2015 10:12 PM in response to Bobby T

    No, your data is absolutely NOT safe and can very likely be recovered if you sell it at this point.  Here is Apple's advice on preparing your laptop:

    What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support

     

    However, what I would recommend is to boot your laptop to an older Mac OS DVD or bootable flash drive that has the version that shipped with the laptop, then then use that Disk Utility to do a "Secure Erase".

     

    Or, you can still do a secure erase using disk utility in command line.  The options are documented in the man page.

    man diskutil

     

    I'll have to agree with you that the massive reduction of the usefulness of the previous Disk Utility GUI is one of those choices that I simply can't believe that Apple though was a good idea.  It's honestly the only El Capitan change that has actually angered me greatly due to such a massive regression of functionality that is important to all users.  If I had my way the new Disk Utility would be thrown out completely and restored to the previous version that allowed easy manipulation of RAID volumes, partitions, images, and secure erase options.  Let's hope that reasonable heads prevail at Apple and that these functions will be restored to the new Disk Utility ASAP.

  • by eightyearmarineveteran,

    eightyearmarineveteran eightyearmarineveteran Dec 12, 2015 11:22 PM in response to Bobby T
    Level 1 (93 points)
    Apple Watch
    Dec 12, 2015 11:22 PM in response to Bobby T

    Your best bet for complete security is to replace the hard drive. In other words take the hard drive out of the computer and put another one in.

     

    Hope this helps

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Dec 13, 2015 10:23 AM in response to FishingAddict
    Level 9 (54,006 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 13, 2015 10:23 AM in response to FishingAddict

    I don't have El Capitan nor am I familiar with all the newest computers.  I wonder if this is because Apple is turning more and more towards using SSDs and if SSDs behave differently towards file deletion because they do not use magnetic media with residual traces of data.  Still, there's plenty of non-SSD use out there such as big drives in Time Capsules and probably in desktops, and one would still need capability for those.  If Apple really has gotten rid of secure erase (rarely needed) then there's likely to be third party utilities which do it.

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Dec 14, 2015 12:53 PM in response to Bobby T
    Level 9 (54,006 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 14, 2015 12:53 PM in response to Bobby T

    It's puzzling but https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22241 says El Capitan still can erase an entire volume.

     

    Other articles I read agree with you and say Apple removed this because with newer (SSD) drives it is difficult to implement successfully.  This article http://www.macissues.com/2015/10/03/how-to-securely-delete-files-in-os-x-10-11-e l-capitan/ provides ways to access this feature in El Capitan, but my reading of this article http://lifehacker.com/how-to-securely-erase-a-solid-state-drive-on-mac-os-x-1580 603733 makes me wonder if it isn't achieving what you think it is (basically a possible reason why Apple removed it).

     

    I think one thing you need to tell us is exactly how old this computer is an what kind of drive it has.

  • by woodmeister50,

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Dec 14, 2015 1:17 PM in response to Bobby T
    Level 5 (5,532 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 14, 2015 1:17 PM in response to Bobby T

    I would say replace the drive and either put the old drive in an enclosure

    and reuse it for backup or take a hammer to it.

  • by lkrupp,

    lkrupp lkrupp Dec 14, 2015 2:23 PM in response to Bobby T
    Level 5 (4,184 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 14, 2015 2:23 PM in response to Bobby T

    I’m not sure what you are talking about because the Disk Utility I have on my El Capitan installation does in deed allow a secure erase function all the way up to and including the Military standard. Selecting the Disk Erase allows only formatting but selecting the Volume Erase and Security Options allows US Department of Defense (DOD) 5220-22 M standard for securely erasing magnetic media with a 7 pass write over.

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Dec 14, 2015 3:56 PM in response to woodmeister50
    Level 9 (54,006 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 14, 2015 3:56 PM in response to woodmeister50

    The solution will depend upon the age of the computer and the type of drive.  I just went to an Apple Store to ask about your question.

     

    With newer computers with built-in SSD drives the solutions are more limited.  You obviously cannot remove the drive.  If the computer came with an OS prior to El Capitan you can create an external boot drive by installing OSX on the drive (even a largish flash drive) and use the older OS version's secure erase.  Even if all you can install is El Capitan it should be possible to boot to  the external and use Terminal commands to erase the internal drive.  You can do a limited secure erase this way by booting to the emergency partition but the Apple Store service person warned me that some private date (namely your Apple ID) is still stored on the emergency boot partition and it is better to erase the whole hard drive by using a second hard drive.  If you do not have the facilities or comfort with using Terminal or doing these things the Apple Store service person said you could bring the computer to a Store to have it done (I think it was at no cost but you might wish to check first).

     

    If you have an older computer with older OS versions the options are many but I am not going to type them all in. We need to know exactly what computer model and drive you have.

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Dec 14, 2015 6:03 PM in response to Bobby T
    Level 9 (50,141 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 14, 2015 6:03 PM in response to Bobby T

    You can still Secure Erase a disk in Disk Utility. It is under the Security Options when you select Erase.

    Secure Erase.png

    However, you can also just Encrypt the drive as-is, then erase the drive normally. I don't know which is faster.