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Wiping the HDD

carfac

carfac

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 18, 2006
1,242
30
Hi:

Sold my iMac 20", and now I need to wipe the drive, and return it to "default" and "base install".

How do I do this? I mean, in as secure a way as possible. I do not have secret plans for making bombs or anything on it, but I do want to make sure I clean it as good as possible.

Then, I assume I just pop in the original CD's and let 'er rip...

Thanks!

Dave
 
Sorry- never done it before, so I have not seen the steps. There is an erase option in thie install- perfect!

What is a pron?

Thanks!
 
OK, I am ready to "do the deed!" I stuck the apple disk in, restarted, and I go to the REFULAR log in screen. I know there must be something I am missing (perhaps the pron?????)- What do I do to get it to boot from the DVD (that IS what I want, right?)

D
 
Thanks- I tried "d"- that got me a hardware test- which it passed!
 
Holy F**K!

I thought I had seen you Mac users bitch about Win taking forever to install- this is showing me 2+ hours!!!! Win shows 45 or so, and takes 25 for me. TWO HOURS! Glad I do not do this often. :D
 
carfac said:
Holy F**K!

I thought I had seen you Mac users bitch about Win taking forever to install- this is showing me 2+ hours!!!! Win shows 45 or so, and takes 25 for me. TWO HOURS! Glad I do not do this often. :D
Click to expand...
That estimated time is normally way off. I took me less than an hour to reinstall when I sold my iMac.
 
Yeah, unless you're using the security option to write zeroes to your drive, it shouldn't take that long. If it is taking that long, something might be wrong with the hard drive. :eek:
 
Nope- no Porn on it- just personal info. Probably nothing all that important, but these days, you godda be careful...
 
If you had any sensitive information stored on the drive before, you should probably use the secure erase option, which overwrites the existing data more than once. However, to my experience that can take many hours.
 
carfac said:
Holy F**K!

I thought I had seen you Mac users bitch about Win taking forever to install- this is showing me 2+ hours!!!! Win shows 45 or so, and takes 25 for me. TWO HOURS! Glad I do not do this often. :D
Click to expand...


My 24" iMac took just over 6 Minutes to do a fresh re-install of OS X.

Of course, I eliminated a BUNCH of crap that you do NOT need, and just serves to slow the machine down... i.e., all the printer drivers, other languages, iLife (I'll install those componants later, etc.)...

It's the fastest OS Install I've seen in a Loooong time ;)

Don't EVER do the standard install... throws TONS of garbage on there you neither need NOR want... maybe this is why my machine is so much faster than others????
 
Boot from the CD, then run the Disk Utility. Erase using 35-way pass. That should be good enough.
 
I did a 7 way multipass security format when I sold my Mac Mini on eBay a couple of weeks ago. Its far quicker than the 35 way pass (taking a matter of hours instead of a few days) and should be secure enough for all but the secret service level of data recovery!!
 
All jokes aside, a 7 way pass is probably overkill and a 35 way pass is a pretty efficient way of reducing a hard drive's life span. For the average user, a single pass should suffice, if that. :)
 
MacProGuy said:
Don't EVER do the standard install... throws TONS of garbage on there you neither need NOR want... maybe this is why my machine is so much faster than others????
Click to expand...

Printer drivers won't slow your computer down if they're not used. They'll take up a bit of hd space, though.

I prefer to just let it install that stuff. Being able to attach the printer to the computer and just have it work is worth it to me.
 
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