erase and install, will it delete windows?

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erase and install, will it delete windows?

i am selling my macbook, and want to delete my data, so they can't access my files. i deleted my entire user account and gave them admin, but what im wondering is would it be better to do an erase and install? and if i did would it effect my windows partition?

macbook 4 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, 2.2GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on May 4, 2008 1:59 AM

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Answer 1

May 4, 2008 2:13 AM in response to Ireina Apoe1

Ireina,

"Erase and Install" will only affect the single volume that you select as a destination. Any other volumes, whether they be additional OS X volumes or Windows volumes, will remain as they are.

If you had any potentially sensitive information stored on this computer, you might want to consider using Disk Utility (accessed from the OS X installer's "Utilities" menu) to erase the volume, then do a standard installation. DOing it this way would give you the option of using the "Zero All Data" option from the Security Options dialogue before erasing. This will securely erase any data, not just remove links to it. If you go this route, make sure you have only the target volume selected (not the entire drive) in Disk Utility in order to preserve the second (Windows) volume.

Scott

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