How to Secure Erase / Zero Out external hard drive in El Capitan?

Let me put on my Bite My Tongue mode on lest the censors here delete this thread as they seem to do if a frustrated user points out serious flaws in current versions of Mac OS El Capitan.

Maybe I am missing something, but the cartoonish Disk Utility is not showing me an obvious place to find an option to Secure Erase (zero out) an external hard drive. The unhelpful Help File clearly states it is "one of the secure erase options in Disk Utility" but I can't seem to find it.

Can someone please let me know where to look so I can zero out yet another defective Western Digital external drive.

Thanks.

IMRAN

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), 2X iPhone6S+/6+/4S,NikonD300.iPad3

Posted on Nov 26, 2015 7:37 PM

36 replies

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Nov 27, 2015 5:39 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you, that sounds like a possible workaround. I wonder if it will take a bit longer than a straight forward Write Zeros. But thank you for the interesting suggestion.

Imran

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Nov 27, 2015 5:40 PM in response to Old Toad

Thanks, OT. I am not seeing that Security option in my case. And none of my externals is an SSD.

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Nov 27, 2015 5:42 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Glad you posted that, Kurt. Thank you.

Old Toad

Level 10

215,846 points

Nov 28, 2015 1:28 PM in response to BobHarris

The only thing that appears to be different is the SIP.

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

May 18, 2016 6:14 PM in response to RobAle

I don't know why Apple has to make things difficult.

Because the zeroing options don't work with SSD's. The way they work is entirely different than a spinning hard drive..

Raicya

Level 10

210,111 points

Oct 3, 2016 3:20 PM in response to adub10001

Hi,

Have u try ☞Disk Wiper 15 for Mac OS X Free ?

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How to Secure Erase / Zero Out external hard drive in El Capitan?