How to clear hard drive?

Question

Hi there
Soon I am giving my powerbook 12" to a friend. How do I clear off my hard drive of all my personal data (i.e., restore back to original)
Thanks for any help you all can give me.

Answer 1

Actually, there are only three options available for a secure erase. (I wondered about that "17-pass" option since it doesn't exist). There is the "Zero Out" option, the "7-pass" option which zeroes out your data seven times, and then the "35-pass" erase that I mentioned which zeroes out, of course, thirty-five times.
Now for the most infamous answer of all to your new predicament. One that I always give out. Target Disk Mode.
You can do this by connecting your PowerBook to another Mac capable of running/installing the version of Mac OS X that's on your disc. Trouble is, this can only be done--because you have the original discs, not retail versions (or are they retail?)--on a similar model PowerBook. (Or if you have retail versions of the disc, since that runs on any machine).
Though I wonder if it would work if it detects a compatible system, your PowerBook, and goes through with the installation process.
Long story short, Target Disk Mode allows you to do many things, but in your specific case, now that I've gone into it, it might not work with original restore/install discs. (That's a first for me... giving a solution that won't work because of a rare stumbling block).
Target Disk Mode is usually for transferring files, but you can also do it to install software to other computers that may have a faulty optical drive. For instance, if you wanted to install, say, iLife '08 on your PowerBook, you connect it to another Mac with the disc running, and then under Target Disk Mode, select your PowerBook as the destination volume.
Message was edited by: Pismo 900
You know, you can do a simple method of deleting your files. Any files that you created yourself and know you did, simply put those in the trash. When you've found all your files, do a "Secure Empty Trash" from the file menu instead of the regular empty trash method. The only other thing I see that would need to be deleted are preference files (this is more risky because if you throw something out that the system needs, there could be conflicts... back in the days of Mac OS 9, it was easy to just pick and choose things to throw out. Not with Mac OS X) from things like Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, and any other place with personal info, like Address Book, iCal, etc.
The other big thing would be your user account itself. You'd have to rename it (the short name can't be changed without using third-party software), change the password to something else or just leave it blank so your friend can use it. The problem there is that even though the password is changed, I've found that the system will sometimes look for an original password for things like Keychain Access, etc. So your friend might want to install something new, or could be just working in Safari, and a pop up dialog box might come up asking for a keychain password or admin password (other than the new one).
So I guess the real thing to do is completely reformat your hard drive to pack it all up and make it clean and usable from the start. =(