Harddrive Q

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I am thinking about selling my PPC MDD and I am just wanting to know, or confirm, what I've read so far about harddrive security (i.e. if someone can reclaim personal information from a harddrive), which is: IF I format, using Disk Utility, my hard drive using this application, will it render my harddrive free of any personal information such as pictures, documents, passwords, etc?

Please let me know, as I read on previous posts that if one is to select the two options in Disk Utility, it should ensure that no information can be recovered.

Thanks,


Drew
 
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the option that you are going to want to select depends on what you currently have on your hard drive.

1) if you have pictures of your girlfriend naked, or your credit card info, or other highly sensitive information you are going to want to do a 35 pass format

2) if you just have your average run of the mill emails and word documents a 7 pass format should be good

now let me elaborate more for you.

in order for you to do this you need to insert your original disk and boot your computer whileholding down the C key. it will actually bring you to the install screen to install os x but from there you will find your way, from the menu bar, to "Disk Utility" from there you can select which format you want to do.

35 pass format literally writes your drive 35 times with all 0's...this process can take days or even close to a week if your computer isnt too fast. 7 times format only does it 7 times and can probably be completed in 24 hours on my MDD.

this all depends on how paranoid you are or what kind of info you were keeping on your drive
good luck with the sale!
-chris
 

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