Doing a 7 or 35 pass erase with Disk Utility?

Hi,
Awhile ago my hard drive got rewritten over by WindowXP and a month and a half later I found out that residue was left behind with weird looking things in my Core Services folder.
So I want to do a secure erase. Should I do a 7 pass or 35 pass option?
Also when I put my TIger disk in the my DVD slot for the erase am I choosing the main part where it says 149.10 GB ST13086.... or the indented part where it says Macintosh HD?
If I select the main part 149.10 GB ST 130608 it says untitled for the name, do I leave it like that if I choose this option?
S.

sig,
So I can choose Macintosh HD and then security option and then do the 7 pass erase (not worried about the FBI, just want my Windows stuff completely gone)? Do I need to erase the free space first?
Message was edited by: spiralgirl

Similar Messages

  • I've tried to conduct a secure erase with disk utility. I highlight the drive but erase options are not available.

    I tried to conduct a secure erase with disk utility. I highlight the drive but there's no place to click "erase."

    If you have an SSD, then the best thing you can do it enable System Preferences -> Security -> FileVault, so that any deleted files are just an encrypted jumble of bits to anyone that does not have the encryption key.
    And even if you do erase the SSD, it does not work the way you think, and retired SSD zones may have your data, and never see an erase.
    This is way keeping the SSD encrypted means retired zones are just encrypted jumble of bits.
    If you do NOT have an SSD, is it possible you are trying to erase your boot disk while you are actually using your boot disk?  Disk Utility will not allow you to do that either.

  • Erasing with Disk Utility

    I thought I cleared out my external using erase in disk utility, but it says there there are 111.5GB available of an 111.6GB drive, but it's a 120GB drive. What happened to the other 9 GB? Should I erase the free space? Why can't I find what's taking up the other 9?

    Hi theJBexperience;
    The computer counts in binary which includes 1024 bytes per kilobyte rather then 1000 hence the disk always appears smaller then what it is listed as for size. Plus on top of that there is some overhead that must be created when you format the disk. I don't think you have anything to worry about here.
    Allan

  • Unable to find HDD after erase with disk utility

    Background id I had installed the Lion OS but then got into trouble with the "flashing question mark " at start up.
    After using the recovery option, Lion OS was reinstalled and things were fine for a couple of days. Then the "flashing ?" returned
    This time, it appeared the "Cmd R" did not work. So I browsed until I found out it is possible in the reinstallation, the recovery option was removed.
    Ok, so then one of the discussion threads suggested to use the installer disc to boot up, use the disk utility to erase the HDD and install in my case Snow Leopard, and thereafter install the Lion OS.
    I am stuck after clicking "erase". First there was an error message - "file system formatter failed' then I no longer can see the HDD in the disk utility.
    How can complete the HDD erase function so I can proceed to install the OS?

    A check in the system profiler - "There was an error while scanning for Serial ATA devices"
    Looks like my iMac's HDD is kaput...Or is there a way to fix this?

  • HT204347 Unable to Re-install mountain Lion after erasing with disk utility! help

    I bought my new Macbook pro retina disply 13 inch last friday. played with it some time and try to restore using a time machine back up of my old Mac Air. It worked well but I didn't like it so I restarted and pressed Command + R to bring the restore utility and from there I used the Disk utility to erase my Disk and then after connecting to net I clicked reinstall Lion. First my machine was verified by Apple, then I entered my apple ID, then the mountain lion licence agreement came and i clicked agree and it started installing. Immediatley below the installation bar it showed 50 hrs remaining to finish installation. it was odd because I used to finish it within 2 hrs. Moreover the time appeared to increase from 50 to 51 and more. I waited all day without any use. it looked as if the disk has some write protection, the software is trying to install but unable to write.
    What can i do now? I am now without a  OS in my mac.

    A new Mac comes with 90 days of free tech support from AppleCare from the date of purchase.
    AppleCare: 1-800-275-2273.
    Have the serial number of the computer ready in hand and give AppleCare a call.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1559?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
    They will walk you through.
    Best.

  • Erasing ipod with disk utility is it worth a shot?

    My 2G ipod is frozen once again can't get it to mount or show up. just asks if I want to ignore or erase the disk or eject. Have tried all the usual tests and self diagnostics. Even tried the tapping on the right side. I'm running the HDD scan now. Just before this happened when it was still mounting I tried to reset and restore it but got a error and failure several times something about the disk . Has anyone had results with erasing the ipod disk with disk utility and then trying to restore and update.? I went to the apple store and they basically said time for a new ipod . It's well out of warranty but I figure its still worth a try erasing if disk utility might help. I already replaced the HD last year and just got a high output Newer battery for it last week so I don't want to give up yet.
    Craig
    15 TiBook 1GHZ, I.25 dual G4 MDD,10G ipod   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

    Erasing seems to hang from the beginning in Disk utilty. I tried zeroing all data which takes longer but I've gotten disk utilty to get the progress bar to go about three quarters of the way and then it hangs. I also checked it with techtool pro and it was finding a lot of bad blocks in the scan.
    One time I got ipod updater to say it was restored but it wasn't really and I couldn't get the software updated. So I'm back at square one with trying erase with disk utilty but after more than a dozen attempts I'm beginning to think this is a lost cause for resurrecting this ipod HD . This is of course after I received a new extended battery for it last week made by Newer which is only good for 1G and 2G ipods.
    frustrated, Craig

  • Problem Erasing external drive with Disk Utility

    I've just purchased some Western Digital My Book Pro 1Tb firewire drives. They come pre-formatted for Windows. When I try to initialize them, Disk Utility returns a failed message & the drive then disappears from the desktop. It is still visible in Disk Utility. I can reformat as a FAT partition but not as a Mac partition. I tried connecting the drive to machine running Tiger and was able to format as a Mac partition. Is there a problem with Disk Utility in Leopard?

    I have seen some behavior like this a few times before. When this happens I go to my Linux box and dd a bunch of zeros to the beginning of the drive, this will blow away any partition tables and such.
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=100k
    This writes 50MB of zeros to the raw device "sdb" (this may be different depending on your system)
    I've tried to dd from MacOSX, but for whatever reason it's painfully slow.

  • Can Time Capsule hard drive be accessed with Disk Utility? I'm having issues...

    How does one mount , inspect , verify , and possibly repair a Time Capsule hard drive  with Disk Utility ?
    My 500Gb 1st gen Time Capsule  ( used wireless with Airport)  has quit backing up new data . ( iMac Core2Duo, Snow Leopard) .  TC  says it needs 238 Gb of available space, but only has 35 Gb available. So it quit doing new  incremental backup altogether. It's almost like it wants to start over.
    Airport connection seems good.  Time Capsule seems healthy enough ( for being 3.5 years old) .  I really dont want to lose the data on the existing backup.
    What is the nature of this glitch ?

    I'm sorry , LaP , but " Time Capsule become too full " is not the cause of my problem .
    In fact, I just got done pruning the iMac system hard drive a little  to free up some  10 Gb of new space , yet created only maybe 1-2 Gb of new data to archive. The TC had been doing regular daily backups without issue and Time Machine  was showing me stuff from about ten days back.
    The TC informed me it needed 235 Gb of space but only had 34 Gb available. That 235 Gb needed is totally in error.  My problem more resembles corrupt hard disk directories . Maybe Permissions ?  which is why I asked about using Disk Utility.
    Yes, I do need a newer larger TC, but pigs don't fly and money does not grow on trees to make tha happen. The backup I have now is fine and should work if I need to restore anything in the forseeable. New data will not be archived, alas.

  • Cant restore my macbook with Disk utility and my .dmg image

    My macbook would not boot anymore. Stuck on gray screen with apple logo, spinning wheel and a loading bar for a while after shutting off.
    I was able to get to Disk Utility in the recovery mode and, after a while, was able to make an image of my filesin an attempt to back them up.
    The .dmg was put on an external and i checked it on my imac, i could open the .dmg file and browse all my files from my macbook, so those are safe!
    After that i tried to wipe the SSD of my macbook and put the image back but that didn't work, also some resource is busy errors.
    After trying this a few times without succes i figured i'd try to do a clean install. This worked.
    My macbook air is working again but if Iuse Disk Utility in the recovery now and try and restore my image (.dmg file) it gives me Restore Failure; An error (-16) occured (resource busy) as well. I also tried to copy the dmg onto my macbook and run disc utility when booted into OSX. I open up the back up .dmg with Disk utility, then i go to my macbooks partition (Macontiosh HD) and use that as a destination and drag the mounted image as the source as shown on the image below. Am I doing something wrong here?
    Doing this i get an error as well: (-119,930,878) Resource busy as you can see.
    What can i do to get my image back on my macbook? Any 3rd party software?
    I considered just transferring the files after opening the .dmg file but this works only for documents and not for programs and settings of the default apps.
    I've looked all over the Internet and it seems more people have had this error but then with making the image, they also suggest unmounting the destination disk before trying to restore but my destination is Macintosh HD, i cant really unmount that can i?
    Thanks in advance!

    To make a clone, in the future you need to use a program like superduper or carbon copy cloner.
    Either program makes an identical clone while preserving certain system files and marking/indicating to OS X that the clone is bootable.
    Using Disk Utility to make a DMG was a good idea, but this will not yield a bootable image.
    If Disk Utility could do a 1:1 copy of everything, then people would be using it to rip/duplicate DVDs.
    But Disk Utility does not (it leaves out certain invisible/system files), hence it cannot duplicate/clone a hard drive or DVD.

  • Help with Disk Utility

    I have a removable usb flash drive that I've been using for a while. Occasionally I need to erase it with disk utility to remove all of the past information it has held. This time around though the drive doesn't seem to be created (I'm not sure if I'm saying that the right way or not).
    I've included a photo here:
    http://northeasternxposure.com/help/drive.png
    Normally there is the "983.0 MB VBTM . . ." drive with the "UNTITLED" one below it. As you can see the "UNTITLED" drive doesn't look like a drive, but has the icon of a document. And at the bottom it shows the capacity, yet none of it is available. This is why it won't mount. I've tried to redo it multiple times with no luck. Hopefully someone knows a setting or something that I should change to repair this problem.

    I went into Finder and it could still see the drive, yet not access it for some reason. So what I did was log out and then back in and everything was working fine again. I've got no idea why that problem had occurred, but thanks for the quick responses.
    And I always do remember to mark helpful and solved. Thanks!

  • Can't get rid of Windows on my Mac even with disk utility

    I noticed this disk0r3 or something like that, and I know this is Windows.
    I have a bit of a bug issuea nd the windows wasn't done very well. I wanted to erease it with disk utility, but it said it couldn't. What should I do?
    I've tried the zero, 15, and 35 or whatever they offered.

    Did you use Apple's Boot Camp utility to create a hard drive partition for Windows?
    If so, do you want to erase the partition created for Windows or eliminate the 2nd partition and go back to a single hard drive partition?
    If the latter, you have no choice but to reformat the hard drive first which erases the hard drive and then re-install OS X and all software.

  • Burning .iso with Disk Utility (Mac)?

    Anyone doing this? I read it can be done but I just tried and it didn't work.
    It's been a long 72 hours or so trying different ways to get my 82-minute 3D feature to various bluray permutaions (i.e. side by side, red-cyan, and of course, 2D) (saving the MVC multiplexing for another day).
    Anyway, I was hoping I could just make an .iso image in Encore and then burn multiple copies with Disk Utility. Some sources say it can be done, but it didn't work on my 10.8 iMac. Thanks, all!

    I don't recall for sure about "disk utility" and DVD and/or Bluray. It seems to me that Toast is usually used.

  • Mac-formatted external HD only access with Disk Utility

    Hello!
    I read a lot about problems with Mavericks and WD harddrives. But i did not found anything about my problem:
    - bought a new HD and formatted with Disk Utility
    - copied all important data to it, all fine
    - next day for my surprise i couldn´t see this HD in Finder
    - looked in Disk Utility and the HD is there
    - if i click on the drive and "open" then i can see it in finder and have access to all data, but if i click on "reveal in finder" i can´t see it!
    - i started CarbonCopyCloner and did a complete backup to a new second backup HD, CCC recognized the HD and everything worked fine
    - now the backup HD has the same problem, i can see it only in Disk Utility
    - it seems that the error moved from one drive to the other, so my guess is it has nothing to do with brands or a hardware failure
    - i´m searching now for hours but i don´t find a solution
    - i now have one (very important) data HD and a backup HD as a clone with the same problem
    - all other HD´s i have are showing correctly in finder!
    Does anyone have any ideas?

    After hours of searching this is the solution:
    Open Terminal, then
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
    killall Finder
    sudo chflags nohidden /Volumes/"Name Of Drive"
    killall Finder
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
    killall Finder
    This thread helped me:
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=209905&highlight=drive&page=4

  • Music Server Can't See External Drive Formatted for WIN with Disk Utility.

    Is there any reason an external drive formatted for WIN (MS-DOS(FAT)/FAT32 or NTFS w/ NTFS-3G/MacFUSE) with Disk Utility would not work for intended purpose? I have a music server (Bryston BDP-1) that uses an attached USB drive for storage/playback of music and can only read FAT32 or NTFS formatted drives. I've tried both and neither is readable by the BDP-1, yet I have no problem reading/writing to the supplied 2GB Thumb Drive (FAT32), as well as another 2GB Thumb Drive (FAT32). Get Info shows; "FAT32" for all drives formatted as such.
    Note: From what I'm told the BDP-1 uses a scaled down version of Linux for it's OS. Isn't that UNIX? Shouldn't it be compatible (Read/Write) with other platforms (i.e, Mac)? Bryston says the reason they use it because it's Open-Source. Does Linux only work FAT32 or NTFS?
    I do have Fusion/XP, also access to WIN PC's, but I just hate to use it when I shouldn't have to. It makes no sense why the drive can't be read by the BDP-1 when formatted for WIN under OS X.
    And there was one other issue, after the third try to format fro WIN the external drive suddenly began making faint clicking sounds instead of a spinning drive sound only when plugged into BDP-1 USB port. But it works fine when connected to iMac FW.
    HW Specs:
    Drive: G-Drive Mobile USB/FW 750GB

    Exchanged drive. Works now.

  • Trying To Create Encrypted Disk Images With Disk Utility.

    I am trying to create encrypted read and write Disk Images of around 2 GB to 6 GB with Disk Utility.
    More often than not the dmg is NOT encrypted.
    It seems very hit and miss . . . . most of the time missing!
    Is this process notoriously unreliable or am I likely to be doing something wrong?

    I think you have cracked it Niel!
    I made another, unchecking the Keychain box, and it worked perfectly.
    I have been using a password which is used for other items.
    Now the .dmg has been created can I check the Keychain box and if so what are the benefits?
    I have never understood what the Keychain does.

Maybe you are looking for

  • EDI to XI

    Hi All, I am working in XI 3.0 . Please give some inputs for the below scenario.- scenario (sap->XI->legacy ) This is related to SD module . From SAP , an EDIFACT message is going to XI . From XI , the output is ioi XML format for invoices  to some t

  • Crystal Reports sort by group headers

    Hi Experts I have created a crystal report with 16 groups. Instead of sorted each group, i need to sort the list of groups by the 16 fields. is this possible? If so, how?

  • Error with filter expression

    Hi guys, i'm trying to write this in the formula for a column which should give me the results for the previous year. I wrote filter("Facts - GL Balance"."Balance Global1 Amount" using valueof(YAGO_MCAL_YEAR#1)) i get this error. Formula syntax is in

  • After migrating profile, can see old folders but not able to open them

    1) Screen dump shows folders as expected, but choosing one by clicking on it does not reveal messages 2) the other tabs (created from previous installation) show correct data 3) menu option help / troubleshooting works ok - output attached 4) other m

  • Polygonal Lasso + Brightness = Unwanted Glow?

    Whenever I use the Polygonal Lasso tool lately, and then modify the brightness of the item selected, it creates a "GLOW" around the *outside* of what I have selected.   So when I deselect it, there is now this "aura" around the item. I have gone into