[X-Newbies] Erase contents of hard disc

[Mark Des Cotes]

Hi Keith,

Sorry, getting to this thread late. First off to eject a stubborn disk (or any removable media) restart the computer with the mouse button held down. Hold the button until the media is ejected. I believe you need a wired mouse for this to work. A wireless mouse wont cut it.

Now regarding the data on your eMac. Was this a personal compute or a business computer? What sort of data are you concerned with? In most cases just dragging your data to the trash and emptying it is good enough. Not many people will go to the trouble of trying to retrieve erased data from a Mac. If you're having problems erasing the drive you could just re-install the OS and tell it not to use any of the current user data. You could also create a new Administrator User account on the computer, and then delete your personal User account. This will eliminate all stored passwords, browser info such as bookmarks, cookies etc., e-mail information and personal information.

If you are planning on selling/donating the computer one of these options should be good enough. If the computer is no longer usable the best thing to do is open it up, remove the hard drive and with a drill put a few holes through it. I just helped someone "erase" 30 drives this way before scrapping them.

If this computer was used for business and the information stored on it is covered by some privacy laws then forget everything I just wrote and keep trying to fully erase the drive. Make sure you do a low level erase or choose an option to write 1s and 0s to the entire drive (sorry it's been a while since I've had to thoroughly erase a drive) this will ensure that the information is actually erased and not just deleted from the directory (which erases the "index" of the drive but leaves the actual data there).

Hope this helps.

Mark Des Cotes
Owner-Graphic Designer
Marksman Design

Mailing address: 
7-841 Sydney Street, Suite # 338
Cornwall, Ontario  K6H 7L2
Canada
613-936-6876




On 2011-04-08, at 4:30 AM, Keith Mills wrote:

> It certainly  looks like nobody can help. And now there is an added problem. I cannot even eject the disk. Every time that I try to "Quit Installer", it merely restarts the computer. Everything is going round in circles.
> 
> Dare I just take it to the village tip and hope that my data is safe from .... whoever?
> 
> In desperation.
> Keith
> 
> 
> On 5 Apr 2011, at 10:55, Keith Mills wrote:
> 
>> I get Welcome to Mac OS X Installer  which is Installer 1.4.1. (v253.2.1) Is that right?
>> I click on Hard Disk (to be erased) and then the circle continues.
>> My OS is 10.3.9
>> 
>> The disk I have used is Software Install and Restore 1 of 2.
>> 
>> Sorry and thanks
>> Keith Mills
>> 
>> 
>> On 5 Apr 2011, at 10:34, Randy B. Singer wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> On Apr 5, 2011, at 1:12 AM, Keith Mills wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Am I being dense?
>>> 
>>> From what you have told me, I can't tell what the problem is.  Unless you aren't really started up from the optical disk you are using.
>>> 
>>> ___________________________________________
>>> Randy B. Singer
>>> Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)
>>> 
>>> Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
>>> http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
>>> ___________________________________________
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
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