I want to donate my emac to a school for use by special education students. How do I wip all my personal data frm computer?
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), actually it's a emac
Throw any files which may contain sensitive information into the Trash and securely empty it(not available in all Mac OS X versions), then use its original disks to erase the hard drive and install a new OS. Include those disks with it.
(70220)
10.4 & up does have the Erase Free Space option.
It's not how much space is used, what happens when you trash files/folders is the just the locations of the files the Sectors where they are stored is released to the OS to use again, a bit like removing Street signs so new Street names/signs can be used, the houses are still there, & if you Know your way around you can still get to them, until the OS puts up new street signs & bulldozes those houses.
Here's a quick simple example of Using DataRescueX on a DMG, it found 2 erased fils it could recover...
If i were to uprade to 10.4, I assume that it would then yield the "erase free space" option, and I could then erase the free space -- if the button was not greyed out, as the "erase" and "option' buttons are presently. Would that be worth a try?
Correct.
Guess what I'm asking is how much danger I would be in, or if it would be easier to just remove the hard drive and destroy it?
Not a lot of danger, but not much expertise required.
Another possibility is to use Disk Utility to make a huge DMG, Make copies of it until it nearly dills the drive, then trash those DMgs, & empty trash.
Use Disk Utility to Secure Erase Free Space. Highlight the Partition, inset & below the whole drive...
Click Erase Free Space, choose Zero out Deleted Files.
OK thanks, I skipped secure delete, went directly to reinstall with OS10 disc. Dialog box said reinstall would erase everything on hard disc. After reinstall I cannot find any personal info anywhere on computer. Looks like this was successful. thanks again!
OK BDAqua, I went thru procedure outlined above, it was very easy to follow, with one little glitch. When i opened disc utility and went to erase, all of the info was greyed out, volume format, options, erase, could not perform any operations as described. i went into disc utility help re "can't select anything in disc utility" I clicked the lock, re-entered admin info, no go. even tried adding a new admin, still not able to activate erase button. Appears I followed correct procedure, still not able to complete. I do see a comment under can't select anything "You cannot erase or partition the current startup disc" Does this have anything to do with issue??
Yes it was greyed out, actually there was no "erase free space" on my emac, screen looked the same as in the graphic, except the choices were "options" and "erase". There were only two items displayed in the box on left "59.50 MB" followed by "Macintosh HD" selecting either of them resulted in greyed out erase button. Same with partition, all the options were greyed out. I spent quite a while looking for some method to highlight them but couldn'd find any. Is there an way to go directly to deleted items on hard drive and then secure delete them?
I don't know what options does, like I said it was greyed out. Your disc utility display shows a "security options" button. My display shows only options and erase -- no secure erase.
I'm wondering if I have already deleted everything and just didn't realize it? In looking at disc utility info screen, it indicates I have 55.9 GB capacity and 53.67 available, I.e. only 2.2 GB has been used. Before more than half of the available GBs had been used...
When I bought a new MacBook Pro the Apples store transferred all info, settings, basically everything from the eMac. I then went thru eMac and moved all my personal info, files, sensitive data onto rw CDs, so I wonder if in moving them it deleted from the eMac hard drive, so there's no free space to erase, and then I wiped the hard drive so that's why the erase button is greyed out?
Sorry to be such a bother, but I'm at a loss to account for why it's so involved to accomplish this. I have used Apple products for over 20 years, still feel I'm running full tilt just to stay with the pack :-)
Would it do any good looking for a pathway into the "free space", see if I can access that, then delete whatever is on there?
Sorry, I'll check my eMac again later tonight, what version OSX is it?
So we know more about it...
At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac, report the version of OSX from that window, then click on More Info, then click on Hardware> and report this upto but not including the Serial#...
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: eMac
Model Identifier: PowerMac6,4
Processor Name: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Processor Speed: 1.42 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 1
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
OK here you go, these are the hardware stats, as presently loaded. I had OS 10.5.8 before I wiped computer:
name - eMac
identifier -Power PC G4
processor name Power PC G4
processor speed 1GHz
CPUs - 2 -- 1 at 512 MB, 1 at 256 MB
Version - Mac OS X 10.2.4 (6J73)
L2 cache - 256K
memory - 768 MB
bus speed - 133 MHz
thanks much!
Yes I do have 'em, when i used them for reinstall the instructions indicated that doing reinstall would delete everything on hard drive. I'm wondereing if this earlier edition was set up to erase everything, hence no erase free space option? My emac is proably 10 years old, at least...
As i mentioned, system was up to 10.5.8 when I reinstalled, I'll bet that version has erase free space option.
Still the fact that only 2.2 GB have been used with reinstall leads me to think that only startup up items and original apps are there. So the question is -- is there a secret cache somewhere that someone capable enough could hack into?? And if so, can a person of moderate computerese figure out how to access it?? Guess that's today's brain teaser ;-)
OK, so by analogy, this sounds like the time I managed to inadvertantly "delete" all my Firefox bookmarks, and in frantically searching thru the computer fround an option "restore deleted bookmarks" and presto they were back, not totally "deleted", just kind of temporarily removed from the browser?
My present version is 10.2.4. If i were to uprade to 10.4, I assume that it would then yield the "erase free space" option, and I could then erase the free space -- if the button was not greyed out, as the "erase" and "option' buttons are presently. Would that be worth a try?
In looking at the Disk Utility screen, I see that all the boxes on erase, partition and RAID boxes are greyed out, and I can't find any way to un-grey them after devoting considerable time to the effort. So assuming someone wanted to hack into my eMac, how much expertise would it take, and is theere any way to know how much of the data would be retrieveable thru DataX or other means. Guess what I'm asking is how much danger I would be in, or if it would be easier to just remove the hard drive and destroy it?
OK thnaks for the info, I will be travelling the next coupe weeks, will try one or both the methods you suggested, when I returnn and will be back in touch, let you know how it went. Thank you again for your help!
OK, been out of area traveling for some time. Finally got around to wiping eMac using the DMG method. took quite a while, but was able to create DMG large enough to equal memory, in 56gb range. Trashed everything on computer, including preloaded applications. Used system sottware install and reload disc to reinstall existing software 10.2.4. However, none of my user accounts will now open, it looks like in trashing everything, it included that. All I get when Mac boots up is box asking for user name and pw, none of the ones I have work, including the original administrator one. Is there any way to recover this info or create new account??
The data, or much of it anyway is likely still there & can be found using the right tools if you didn't Secure Erase the free space.
Just the directory entries were erased.
how do I wipe my emac?
