Wiping Foreign Hard Drive on iMac.

Hi,

I have a 20-inch, Late 2006 iMac. It's old, and on it's last legs. In 2012, the Hard Drive died. I had it replaced at an indie tech shop, so i'm not sure exactly what kind of HD they replaced it with. It has worked fine for the most part.

I would now like to wipe/delete the contents of the hard drive. Might be giving this computer away and want it clean.

I can see there disk/volume in Disk Utility, but when I go to the erase tab, I cannot select "delete" or "security options" or any of the functions.

Any idea how to wipe this computer another way?

Thanks

What OS verson is your Late 2006 iMac running? Max OS it can run is 10.7.5.

- If it's running OS 10.6 or earlier...you need an OS install DVD to secure erase the hard drive.
- If it's running OS 10.7...you boot into the Recovery Partiton...launch Disk Utility...then secure erase the drive.

HTH,

- Nick

You cannot format the drive you're booted from. It wont work. As Nick said, a boot dvd or a recovery partition, or even better a bootable usb stick.