I am going to be selling my trusty 12" PowerBook G4 to a friend soon, and putting the money I get from that towards a last revision 15" PowerBook G4. After I transfer my data from the 12" to the 15", I want to completely and securely erase my hard drive. The thing is, I don't know how to do this! I've never formatted/erased a hard drive before.
View 14 RepliesI have OS X Lion. I recently purchased this Macbook Pro 15" laptop, and I am planning on returning it, to get the newer upgraded laptop, as the store manager said I can do this, since I purchased my laptop within 30 days of the announcement of a new MacBook Pro. I would like to format everything, before I return it back to the store, however, it never came with an installation cd. How can I do this? I have tried ways that I have heard, such as creating a new admin user account and deleting all the other accounts. Also I have erased all the free space using the disk utility section. However, it will not allow me to erase the hard drive. Is there a way to do this without an installation cd?
Info:MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
I am using a macbook with an Intel Core 2 Duo (about two years old) and I am running leopard (10.5.8).
I have been using a Western Digital 250GB External Hard Drive with a firewire connection to utilize Time Machine for the past 6 months. All was going reasonably well until recently. (It would occasionally get stuck backing up and I would have to restart my computer and then backup again, but otherwise ok)
Last week I turned my computer on and it didn't recognize the drive. It gave me the "Initialize" "Ignore" option screen. I tried everything before I tried erasing it, but eventually I decided to lose all of that backed up data and just erase the drive and start from scratch. (I backed up on a different drive prior to trying this.)
Anyway, now when I go into Disk Utility and click on the Erase tab and then try to erase the drive (doesn't matter which erase option I choose) it says it is unable to erase the drive. If it is plugged in w/the Firewire cable then it gives me an "Invalid Argument" error. If it is plugged in with the USB cable, it gives me a input/output failure error.
Does anyone know if I can fix this drive? Any ideas as to what may have caused the problem in the 1st place. Months ago I accidently unplugged the drive without ejecting, but it worked for for a long time after that.
I'm in a bind. I want to sell my MacBook Pro, but my dad threw away the installation DVDs that would allow me to erase the hard drive. What's the best option here? I was thinking that I could purchase the upgrade version of Leopard on Ebay since it's cheaper than the full version of snow leopard... but would that allow me to erase the hard drive?
View 14 Replies View RelatedIs there anyway to erase my hard drive on my old broken mbp? (fried logic board) I want to sell the whole unit, but feel that the only thing i could do is take out the hard drive and sell everything else. Id prefer to not have to dismantle my mbp as it is somewhat time consuming. Is there a way to erase it within the mac?
View 2 Replies View RelatedHow do I erase my hard drive? In Utility>Disk Utility, but the only option highlighted is "Erase Free Space".
Info:
MacBook (13-inch Mid 2007), Mac OS X (10.5.8)
I have a mac I want to sell. How can I be sure that all of my private data is completely erased? Does a fresh install (complete) of OS X work?
View 5 Replies View RelatedIs there any reason to erase hard drive and do a new install other than selling mac or new os?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI want to erase everything on my hard drive as I want to give it away to someone. It has Lion on it.
I tried to erase using Disk Utility but the disks were grayed out. I have saved all the data on another disk so I can completely erase the drive.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
If Apple erases the hard drive for you when you recycle an old emac with them or must I do it myself. How is this done?
Info:
eMac (ATI Graphics), Mac OS X (10.3.x)
I can't seem to find any instructions online about how to do this, step by step. Want to make sure all personal data is erased. I'm interested in performing a full format that at the very least zeros out the data on disk.
Info:
Power Mac G5, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
Macbook OS X 10.5.8 and a WD 10EAVS 1TB External Hard Drive. That's all. I was given this by a fellow student on campus who was graduating. So I want to use this to store my iTunes Library (my Macbook's hard drive ran out of space). Here's what I do:
- Macbook is turned on and running
- I plug the external hard drive into a working outlet --> Hard drive turns on
- I plug the external hard drive into the mac using a USB connection --> Disk Insertion Error message: the disk you insterted was not readable by this computer
- It is not readable so I open it in Disk Utility (the hard drive is listed/recognized)
- I attempt to erase and/or partition the hard drive in order to format it in Mac OS Extended OR Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but I get one of these two messages: "Disk Erase failed with the error: File system formatter failed." OR "Disk Erase failed with the error: The underlying task reported failure on exit."
I attempted to look up what these mean or how to fix the problem but nothing is really working. I was able to format the hardware line to MS-DOS (FAT) and the sub-line as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but I don't even know if that's right or not.Basically, I need my computer to recognize this hard drive whenever I plug it in and to run smoothly as "extra space" to store my music on.I haven't had A LOT of experience with external hard drives but enough to get things done. But this problem is a killer.
Info:
mac book, Mac OS X (10.5.6)
I want to carbon copy my bootable external drive to my main internal bootable hard drive so I tried to use Disk Utility to erase it but it will indicate that it failed and can't unmount. When I tried to manually unmount by dragging it to the trash it indicated that it is in use. I can't understand why it's in use since I booted from the external drive which I wanted to the copy to the internal drive.
View 2 Replies View RelatedWhen installing Snow Leopard, will it erase my hard drive and force me to start all over or will it just update the software and keep everything the way it is on my Mac now?
View 6 Replies View RelatedVery new wth mac. Got my first power mac G5 running OS x 10.5.8. I want to add second hard drive. I took the 320GB hard drive out of my Dish Network HD DVR receiver. Tried to erase the data from the drive by using Disk Utility and did not go through. It detect the drive but show 0 byte. Does anyone know what can I do?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI recently had a problem with bootcamp so I tried to use time machine to backup my Macbook Pro. However it made an attempt to erase my HD so I immediately pulled out the cables and shutdown the program. However my disk is now "not readable by this computer" I have attempted a rebuild with diskwarrior but with no success. How to get my disk working again without having to format it?
View 2 Replies View RelatedI have my external HDD partitioned for my Media storage and for Time Machine. Unfortunately, my mac is having problems and I want to back up my computer to reinstall Lion. Problem is...Time Machine is also not backing up anymore (last backup was 2 months ago). So I want to erase the Time Machine volume of my HDD so I can use SuperDuper to backup my hard drive...but of course I don't want to erase the media partion. So...using Disk Utility, I can just erase the Time Machine partion (volume) of the HDD and leave the Media portion intact, correct? I would hate to erase the Time Machine volume and find out the Disk Utility also erased all my music and movies too!
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
Cant erase hard drive because cant "unmounted disk"...My hard drive crashed about a month ago, and i used a program called data rescue to clone hard drive. when i put it in mac it will not load. now all i want to do is erase the drive and install Yosemite as new mac. but cant install or erase the hard drive.
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
I have an external hard drive that was used on a PC. I want to use it on a Mac. I went into disk utility and did an erase. (Extended Journaled and in security options changed it to zero out data). I can now use it on the Mac how ever it is telling me that there is 54.1 MB of used space. I want to have access to this. How do I do it?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have a hard drive with about 250 gb of film and music on fbut it's formatted as HFS+ which windows cant read! I need to partition the drive to make windows be able to read at least a portion of it. But If I run disk utility and create a partition will it erase the info I already have on there? I don't have this data else where so I hope it wont!
View 6 Replies View RelatedSo I may have one of the Seagate hard drives that are failing badly. Haven't heard back from Seagate to see if my drive and firmware is bad, but since I just bought the drive, I'm thinking of returning it.I'm in the middle of a 7 Pass Secure erase on it (1TB). Do people feel comfortable returning a drive after doing that erase? Or should I just forget about it and destroy the drive and chalk it up to a loss?
View 20 Replies View RelatedI just received my new MacBook Pro. It came with 250 gb of hd space. I had to do an erase and install on it because of an issue that came up while using the migrant assistant. So, after doing the erase/install it says that I only have 216 gb of space left? And thats without the applications CD that I have to put in which will be about 4 gb. I believe when I first turned the computer on before doing the erase/install it had about 235?
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have the Seagate Momentus XT and I have a quick question. If I reformat the Hard Drive portion does that erase the SSD side as well? If not how do I erase the SSD side of it.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI tried to erase my backup files from my external hard drive. Once in the trash, I cannot delete the backup.backup file.
Info:Mac OS X (10.6.7)
I tried reformatting while running Snow Leopard, but the option was grayed out and the install disc made the computer hang at the white bootup screen. I figured I'd just upgrade to Lion and do a clean install (not an option).
After upgrading to Lion, I booted into recovery to erase the hard drive. I did it and it took less than ten seconds (bad sign).
Now I can't get past recovery and the hard drive is still full.
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7)
I try to securely erase big hard drive and Disk Utility in Tiger says Secure Erase. Pass 1 of 7. Estimated time 123 hours
Is this progress bar only for erase 1/7 or for all 7 passes (1-7/7)?
1. To grab all the files I need/don't want to lose (photos, music, documents, etc.)2. Then completely erase the 500GB HD so I can then install it into the new Macbook Pro and install Leopard.(I'll then externally connect the 160GB HD that came w/ my Macbook Pro and add the files I've already copied into that 160GB HD into the 500GB Leopard installed HD in the new Macbook Pro)So, currently my 500GB HD is connected to my Macbook pro and I want to completely erase everything so I'll then have a completely clean hard drive, to then install into the Macbook Pro, add the installation discs and install Leopard into the 500GB HD.
View 14 Replies View RelatedHow I can erase my old time machine backups on my old external hard drive and re-use for something else to back up.
Info:
iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009)
I replaced a 1 TB external drive partiotioned in 2 with a 3 TB extrnal drive run/store my corbon copy cloner back up and time machine.
The 3 TB drive was successfully partitioned through the disk utility and both back ups are installed and the initial back up is complete.
My question is about the 1 TB drive. I want to completely erase all data from the drive in order to use it for a different use.
Using disk utility one of the partitions deleted without incident when following the same protocol the second partition produced error messages.
Volume erase failed
Volume Erase failed with the error:
Couldn’t unmount disk.
If I try to eject the disk
It says it will not eject becaus e a program may be using it...
The only program that utilized this partition is Carbon Copy Cloner which is not being utilized on the new 3TB drive.
I do not see where there is a option to have more than on disk chosen for this purpose so am unsure why the disk utility is seeing the old partion as still in use.
I have a MacBook Pro running OSx 10.9.4 and have been successfully using Time Machine with a WD My Passport External Hard Drive for a while. Now (after 10 days with a successful back-up), the computer will not back-up. I have gone into disk utility and tried to erase, partition, and/or repair the disk, but repeatedly get error messages - it can't erase the disk, re-partition the disk or unmount the disk.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), External Hard Drive
