I just sold my iBook G3 which had been running Panther since I got it. I deleted my keychains manually and then I reinstalled the OS previous to Panther before shipping it to the buyer. At the beginning of the reinstall, I believe I elected to have it erase everything before install. Will this action have erased all my personal data safely?
ibook G3 12inch
Yes sir. When you wipe install a hard drive like that it clears EVERYTHING from the drive and replaces it with the new files and you have the extra space to start over. You dont have anything to worry about, unless the person you sold it to has special powers.... :-) yup, don`t worry.
Yes sir. When you wipe install a hard drive like that it clears EVERYTHING from the drive and replaces it with the new files and you have the extra space to start over. You dont have anything to worry about, unless the person you sold it to has special powers.... :-) yup, don`t worry.
Thanks so much. You put my mind at ease. I was sure I had done everything correctly but the shadow of doubt about the security of my personal data was gnawing at me.
If using Disk Utility you would have had three options:
1. Erase … Would not have overwritten all previous data leaving some potentially recoverable
2. Erase Free Space … Would have overwritten previous data remaining after reformat
3. Security Options … Would have depended on option chosen - Zero Out Data would have overwritten, Don't Erase Data wouldn't have overwritten previous data
Actually, doing a total reinstall does not clear everything from your hard drive. That can only be accomplished by securely erasing your hard drive, after which you would then install the OS again.
For future reference, that's done with Disk Utility -> Erase -> Security Options and choosing the 7-pass secure erase (Department of Defense standard), or the 35-pass erase option (really, really, really secure, but takes a long time and puts more wear on your hard drive).
You have to boot your Mac from the OS X install disk and run Disk Utility from there, since you can't erase the drive that Disk Utility is running on.
Erasing an iBook G3 for resale
