Wipe hard drive data without access to screen

I want to permanently wipe out all data on my hard drive. The problem is that my video card has crashed/burned down, so I don't have access to the screen. Is there a way of wiping out all data without physically removing the hard drive?

Do you have access to another Mac? If so mount your blind Mac to it in the Target Disk Mode, Transferring files between two computers using FireWire. Now you'll see the drive on the other Mac's screen and can run Disk Utility to reformat/repartition the drive.
OT

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How wipe hard drive clean without a disk and reinstall OS?

Running a 15" Mid 2010, OS 10.8.3; after migrating Profile to new MacBook want to wipe hard drive clean & reinstall Mountain Lion 10.8.3 in order to give to daughter as a "new" computer. All I can find in archived discussions is how to do it w/ a disk.

Yes I would.
The iLife Apps, "i" Photo, Movie and Garageband (And "i" DVD and WEB if you Mac came with Snow Leopard originally), are not included with the Operating system. They are separate applications that you need to either download from the Mac App Store, from your Purchases area once you have logged into the MAS with the Apple ID you used to register that Mac with, or from the second System Reinstall Disc, the Applications disc, that came with your Mac if it originally came with Snow Leopard.
So I read you are running a Mid 2010 MBP. In that case you would need to use the second Original System Disc to reinstall the iLife Applications.
That may be a problem for you as the iLife apps that came with that system are 3 years old and may not want to install on Mt Lion 10.8.3.
If you run into problems installing them from that second system disc you may have to start off by first reinstalling Snow Leopard and then the iLife Apps and Then Upgrade to Mt Lion. Making sure after installing Snow Leopard and the iLife Apps you update everything through Software Update before you do the Mt Lion upgrade.
Sorry about the hassle but blame Apple for that.
Hopefully you have the Original system discs but if you don't then you can order a replacement set from Apple for a small charge.
Good Luck & Best Wishes.

Is there any way to completely wipe my hard drive clean without losing the basic operating system

is there any way to completely wipe my hard drive clean without losing my operating system

Stellar Wipe Mac is a wiping software that wiper a hard drive beyond the scope of recovery. You can select from the software which drive to wipe leaving the OS X intact. Else, if the drive is a single partition then no software will be able to wipe without wiping the OS X. So be careful.
More Info on Disk Wipe Mac - http://www.stellarinfo.com/data-safety-eraser/wipe-mac/file-eraser-mac.php

Need to wipe hard drive to restore to previous date from time machine back up. Unclear how to do this. Please advise or provide link to this procedure on website. Thanks.

Need to wipe hard drive to restore to previous date from time machine back up. Unclear how to do this. Please advise or provide link to this procedure on website. Thanks.

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Is there a way to access my iTunes Library, which is stored on a (PC) External Hard Drive, on a MacBook Air (through an Apricorn Universal Hard Drive Adapter), without transferring the music files off of the external hard drive?

Is there a way to access my iTunes Library, which is stored on a (PC) External Hard Drive, on a MacBook Air (through an Apricorn Universal Hard Drive Adapter), without transferring the music files off of the external hard drive?
In other words, because the MacBook Air only has 120 gbs of hard drive space & my old hard drive, from a Lenovo, has 500 gbs of hard drive space (and I have over 120 gbs of music), I’m looking to manage my iTunes music from the external hard drive permanently. Upon attempting to access the iTunes library held on the external hard drive the following message comes up: “The iTunes Library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file”. Is there a way to get around this?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much!

You will have to engage a split library which means you will have to start answering questions on this forum because you will need to learn a lot about how iTunes works in order not that have a big mess at the end of it all. It also won't be easy when the time comes to relocate it all to different drives.
You can go to advanced preferences and turn off organize media and copy to items to media folder when adding items to library. Next read about how to selectively consolidate items to the external drive.
Sept. 2010, Consolidate selected content - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2589812 and April 2014, https://discussions.apple.com/message/25414357
"...selected the new tracks directly in iTunes, Control-clicked on the selection, and saw that now you can consolidate selected items." - http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090919000326840
Remember that when you start iTunes without the external drive turned on iTunes will present you with a bunch of broken links. If you have automatic downloads enabled with iCloud you may have to turn that off to prevent iTunes from repopulating your drive trying to deal with those "missing" tracks.
If you add tracks in bunches to iTunes and want them to go to different media folders you will need to either add them by holding down the option key while dragging if the desired media folder is not the one set in preferences, or by changing the media folder in preferences. Changing media folder preferences only applies to new files added, not old ones.
Okay, I am going to stop typing because you might just reply to me, "Oh, okay, forget it," and I don't need the exercise.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

Wipe Hard Drive clean install of Window Server

What is the best way to wipe Hard Drive? Save a partition for later use and use remaining partition to install Sever OS, save to external drive(to use later) and wipe completely(cleanest install, I believe), complete wipe completely not worrying about
saving anything, or suggestions?
NOTE; The machine has never been turned on, still in the box. Hardware goes above and beyond Min. Requirements for software.
Which is the best way to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Evaluation download - ISO image? Azure?
How to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials from ISO image- Download and burn to DVD, Save to USB or to actual machine?
How to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials from Azure? (Don't have Azure account)
I need to have it completed ASAP so I can install Accounting/PM database software. Need it operational Monday if all possible. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Woodrow

There are a lot of embedded questions here, I'll try to hit them all:
1) If you're reinstalling on the same partition, you do not need to be too crazy in how it gets formatted. There's no performance gain to using BCWipe or anything. When you format, you're just erasing the table of contents, then overwriting the
actual data later on anyway. Just keep it simple.
2) If you want to save the data, just copy it somewhere else before you delete anything. If you're not concerned about the data, don't worry about it, just go back to answer #1.
3) You can download the Evaluation OS from the MS website. You cannot turn an eval copy into a full install without reinstalling, so are you sure that is what you want? You'll end up test building, then when you like it, you'll have to do it
all over again.
4) ISO to DVD or USB: Doesn't matter how you end up installing it. Today's machines can usually support any install media. Some ways are faster, but you're only talking about saving minutes. What does it really matter?
- Chris Ream -
**Remember, if you find a post that is helpful, or is the answer, please mark it appropriately.**

Best way to free up hard drive and still access pics

My 7 years worth of pics have filled up my hard drive. What is the best way to use TC (if it can be used for that) to free up my hard drive and still access the pics? If i also used an external HD plugged into the TC would that show up in my finder? Thanks in advance

The TC is a lousy place to locate your photos.. the simple reason is there is no backup.. The whole reason for the TC is a backup.. if you move the picture to the TC there is no automatic backup without setting up software and another device as backup location. So you may as well either.
1. Put a bigger hard disk in the Mac
2. Plug in a USB or Firewire drive into your Mac
3. Get a proper NAS which does auto backup
4. USB drive connected to the TC will work but is by far the slowest option. The data rate is half that of the same drive connected directly to your computer.
5. Get a computer as a server into which you can place or attach a heap of hard drives.

I am migrating to a new iMac via TimeMachine back up. My iPhoto libraries are on external drive. I'd like to migrate only the internal hard drive data to the new internal Drive then just plug in iPhoto library drive. Is this going be a problem?

I am migrating to a new iMac via TimeMachine back up. My iPhoto libraries are on an external drive. Both drives are backed up on Time Machine. I'd like to migrate only the old internal hard drive data to the new internal Drive and then just plug in iPhoto library drive to the new iMac. This would save having to transfer several hundred GBs of data. Will this work using Set Up Assistant?

Your user account on the new Mac must have a different UID than on the old one. See the pink box in Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation.
You'll need to change the permissions on the iPhoto library on the external HD. Do a Get Info on it, click the padlock at the bottom of the Sharing & Permissions section of the Info window and enter your Admin password.
Then click the plus sign, select the user account you want on the next screen, and click Select. Then change Read only to Read & Write for that user via the little arrows. Finally, click the "gear" icon and select Apply to enclosed items. That may take a few mintutes on a large library.

How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?

I have a seagte back up plus. I pulled my hard drive out without ejecting it and now finder dosn't find it but I see it in disk utility (although I cant repair permissions) How do I get finder to recognize my hard drive after pulling my hard drive out without eject...? Is my hard drive dead? I see it in disk utility... Can I get my info back?
Thank you so much for any help

In Disk Utility you need to see a volume or partition in addition to the drive.
If all you see is the drive, then when you ejected it you proably corrupted the volume or partition on the drive.
If that is true then your chances of getting anything back are slim at best.
About the only thing I know that might work not is to send the disk out to a service for recovery. This is going to cost like $$$$.
Is the data worth that much?
Allan

I HAVE BEEN USING MID 2011 MACBOOK AIR 11 INCH.I AM LOSING MY HARD DRIVE SPACE WITHOUT ANY REASON.FIRST IT WAS 84.1 GB NOW IT IS 83.9 AND SLOWLY LOSING SPACE.WHY IS THAT?? PLS PLS HELP

I have macbook air mid 2011 .. Now i am losing my hard drive space without any apparent reason..I am not downloading anything not i am adding anything still that i am losing my hard drive space for no apparent reason..pls pls help..

I have never heard of a relation between the enabled state of Time Machine, and boot. Its probably coincidental.
Try booting in Safe Mode (hold down shift key, whilst booting). Then check for apllications in your Users & Groups preferences that are starting up with login. Disable all startup apps, then eanable them one at a time, booting normall. See which app is possibly hanging.
You can also try doing a Repair Permissions and Repair Disk on your startup drive. This must be done within Disk Utility when booted to your Recovery Partition. To boot to the Recovery Partition, hold down the OPTION key while booting, and select the Recovery Partition drive to boot from. Then run Disk Utility.

My Mac Book hard drive is nearly full. How do I move iTunes music, etc folders to a different location on an external hard drive and still access as if on my Mac?

My Mac Book hard drive is nearly full. How do I move iTunes music, etc folders to a different location on an external hard drive and still access as if on my Mac?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

Wipe Hard Drive/Fried Logic Board

How do I wipe Hard Drive clean when G4 Powerbook will not start up due to fried logic board? I can wait 3 weeks, and One to One will tell me at Apple...lol...

Or you can get this low-cost adapter:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/U2NV2SPATA/
and not need a case. I can't begin to tell how many times this gadget has made an other wise tough job easy. Works with PATA 3.5", PATA 2.5", and SATA drives.

How do I download all my photos onto an external hard drive intact without loosing iPhoto's features, important info and details? I need to delete pictures and files to make room in My mac's memory which is currently full.

Hi
How do I download all my photos onto an external hard drive intact without loosing iPhoto's features, important info and details? I need to delete pictures and files to make room in My mac's memory which is currently full.
Maro

So you want to move the iPhoto Library?
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

I have the new 2011 macbook pro, with lion preinstalled. I want to change the harddrive. I have backed up everything on time machine. when i put my new blank hard drive in will the lion screen startup.How do i get the lion dmg when i am already using lion

I have the new 2011 macbook pro, with lion preinstalled. I want to change the harddrive. I have backed up everything on time machine. when i put my new blank hard drive in will the lion screen startup.How do i get the lion dmg when i am already using lion

NicholasLiban -
When you use the Lion restore as described, it does a fresh install on the hard drive that you can select at the beginning of the process. This provides a complete install of the very latest version of Lion, including the recovery partition. The drive that you choose for the installation destination winds up like what you would have on a brand new computer from Apple.
- Randy

How to wipe hard drive bc selling computer and want all passwords/personal info gone? etc

how to wipe hard drive bc selling computer and want all passwords/personal info gone?

You need to boot the computer from another source, e.g. a CD or an external drive. Then run Disk Utility, select the drive you want cleaned up, and run Erase. Note the security options: "write zeroes" will erase the drive completely.

Wipe hard drive data without access to screen

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