[iBook]

Does anyone know of any good programs for permanantly deleting any and everything off a hard drive?

I am selling a computer and do not want ANYONE to be able to read my files on the drive. Is there any good software, or any way in the macOS to do this? I thought about a low level format, but does this insure the files are not still there? Are there any initialization options I can set to do this?

Any input would be appreciated.

[Storyboy]

I've used Norton Utilities to wipe out a drive; you can set it to do a security overlay of random characters. I have no idea about the effectiveness here. I guess it varies depending on what it is you have to hide and who may be looking.

I think any of the Disk utilities so often mentioned here should do the trick: Norton, DiscWarrior, TechTool Pro. I could be wrong.


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"The only consistant people I know are dead."

iMac DVSE 400/128/13
OS 9.0.4

[iBook]

I have nothing illegal to hide, of course. I would just like to get rid of stuff like bank info, credit card numbers, e-mails, etc. I don't know exactly how proficient the person who buys it may be in recovering data, as I never know what kind of person I am doing business with on eBay. I guess I will just do a low-level and write zeros in disk initialization, and use Norton. You really can never be too safe as far as personal info goes.

[Cipher13]

Delete everything on your HD using the conventional trash.
Now, download a program called Burn, and use its command "erase free space".
Now, when thats done, using Drive Setup, do a low level initialisation, and check the "zero all data" button.

Burn: http://www.versiontracker.com/redir....756/burn25.hqx

Cipher13

[tonton]

Beware:

Even though the average Joe Consumer, or even the average Joe Fraudster, cannot retrieve any information off of a zeroed drive, if you were to get on the wrong side of the FBI or someone else with boundless resources, they can possibly retrieve data off of your drive.

How? Well, very sensitive magnetic equipment can detect the residual data of magnetic media. The best way to avoid any possibility of this is to write random data to the disk several times over (three or more).