[Woodster_X]

Hi,

Can anyone recommend me some reliable software which will completely erase the data on my hard drive? I have lot's of personal and business documents which I need to be sure will not be recoverable.

many thanks.

[Big Mac]

You can securely erase your important files from the Finder and then do a full erase of the drive using Disk Utility and be reasonably confident the data is gone, but, OTOH, government agencies set fire to their old drives to ensure the drives are completely unreadable.

[Woodster_X]

Thanks for the reply.

So does a full erase from Disk Utility overwrite the data with dummy data? I believe this is the only sure fire way to make sure that the files are unrecoverable?

[moep]

DBAN does that very well. Download the iso, burn it and boot from the CD.

http://www.dban.org/download

Note that the entire harddisk will be erased, not just a few select files. You’ll have to reinstall the OS afterwards.

[ghporter]

Disk Utility will do everything you want. You can meet and exceed DoD data erasure standards with DU's "Security Options" under the Erase button. You can run DU from your install disc, so you can leave a completely blank drive in a Mac you're selling-though if you're selling the machine it's better to just have the install disc reinstall the OS and simply not finish the process...like it came from the factory.

[Woodster_X]

Thanks for the reply's. That's very helpful.

This is an external firewire drive used for data rather than my iMacs internal drive. (probably should have mentioned that sorry).

Cheers

[ghporter]

If it mounts, Disk Utility can format/wipe it. Really.

[Chuckit]

Actually, Disk Utility can do all that stuff whether or not it mounts. It just has to be able to talk to the drive.