[Fred]

My wife has a Macbook she has been using for work for about 2 years. It has been running OSX & XP Pro via Bootcamp. She used both OS's for email, Word, Internet, etc. The hdd is allotted about half to XP & half to OSX. She has been issued a new computer, & would like to return the old one with nothing more than a fresh OSX installation. In other words, no recoverable deleted files, old emails, passwords, etc., etc. Her employer "disposes of" such machines in an unspecified manner, so we want to be certain no trace of her remains. I have the Macbook OSX install disks 1& 2, ver. 10.4.6. I've loaded/reloaded various windows version more times than I can count over the years, but my knowledge of Macs is limited. I'd basically like to format the entire hdd, ideally over write it with zeros or the like a few times to be sure nothing remains which is recoverable, then load OSX & return the machine. What would be the best way to do this?

THANKS!

Fred

[silver]

Here's a few steps to try.

1. Go to the utilities folder in the applications folder and start the Bootcamp utility.
2. You should be presented with a screen that will allow you to erase the Bootcamp partition thus leaving only the OS X partition.
3. When finished, boot from the OS X installer disc.
4. Proceed with the install, making sure to select erase and install.
5. If you want you can even erase with different security levels, under security options.
6. After all that, the unit should be ready to be given back.


Cheers

[tripletaker]

You can take any other Mac and connect the two with FireWire. Boot up the MacBook holding the T key to get into FireWire target disk mode. Open up Disk Utility in the other Mac and select the MacBook's hard drive and go to the Erase tab to erase it. If you want it to be thorough you can select Security Options and choose to zero out the data. That takes a long time.

[amazing]

The MB has an easily replaceable HD. If you're super concerned about privacy, I'd just replace the HD and put the old one in an external case, so she'd have it both as backup and later on as an external HD for miscellaneous extra storage.

Zeroing everything will work just as well and you can let it churn away overnight.

[Fred]

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, when I clicked on bootcamp under utilities, I got a message telling me it had "expired", so I cannot start it to remove the XP partition. The laptop had been running the beta of Bootcamp under Tiger, I see in searching that Apple switched to a full, paid version under Leopard. I did reload OS X, but never saw an option to overwrite with 0's. Perhaps I missed it?

Now the Bootcamp utility does not appear at all. Oddly, I can still boot to Windows.

Under OSX, the windows partition appears as "untitled". The OSX partition does not appear at all in WE when running XP. Is there a way I can at least eliminate & wipe the XP partition from OSX?

Thanks again,

Fred

[Fred]

Originally Posted by tripletaker 

You can take any other Mac and connect the two with FireWire. Boot up the MacBook holding the T key to get into FireWire target disk mode. Open up Disk Utility in the other Mac and select the MacBook's hard drive and go to the Erase tab to erase it. If you want it to be thorough you can select Security Options and choose to zero out the data. That takes a long time.

I have done that in the past with the Macbook in question and an older mac laptop my wife had previously. At the moment though, we only have the one mac. Is it possible to do this with the mac & a PC? I am very familiar with the insides of desktops, having built several pc's, but have never delved into the inerds of a laptop. What connector does the hdd in this laptop have, specifically, is it IDE or SATA? If so, I could presumably pull the hdd, hook it up to my windows pc mobo & then access/wipe the drive from there.

Fred

[Cold Warrior]

Try turning your OS X clock back to, say, September 2007. See if that eliminates the boot camp assistant expired message.

[Fred]

I should add that when I attempt to access the windows partition in OS X disk utility & select erase, all options are dimmed

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

Try turning your OS X clock back to, say, September 2007. See if that eliminates the boot camp assistant expired message.

Yeah, I should have tried that BEFORE I reloaded OSX. Unfortunately now the bootcamp utility doesn't appear at all...

[ghporter]

The expiration of the Boot Camp beta should have no impact on an existing Windows partition. The only thing that has expired is the beta software, that is the utility. So it wasn't "oddly enough," it was very much expected. You just couldn't use the Utility to do anything to that partition, including delete it.

There is a solution to this-doing exactly what tripletaker says. Wipe the drive using Target Disk Mode. You might also be able to just put in your OS X install disc and tell it to take the whole drive, but there may be some issues in whether or not that will work as smoothly as you'd like.

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Fred 

I should add that when I attempt to access the windows partition in OS X disk utility & select erase, all options are dimmed

I should add II, the options are also dimmed when I boot from install disk 1 & attempt disk utilities/erase from there.

There MUST be a way to do this...

[ghporter]

Boot from the OS X disc. You can do ANYTHING using Disk Utility from the install disc.

[Fred]

OK I think I've got it! Running disk erase from the install disk on the ENTIRE HDD, not just the Windows partition (duh... ) Writing 0's to the whole disk, seems to be proceeding. Afterwards I'll just re-re-install OSX.

Thanks again all,

Fred