User:Kjkiser2/Formatting the Hard Disk

This article is provided with the permission of NCSU ITD/Mac (http://www.ncsu.edu/mac/).

Formatting the Hard Disk

Apple Tech Note 107437 gives this procedure:

Steps for zeroing data

These steps assume you have a Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later CD:

1. Insert the Mac OS X CD
2. Restart the computer
3. Immediately after the startup sound, press and hold the C key to start up from CD
4. When the Installer screen appears, do not click Continue. Instead, choose Installer > Open Disk Utilities
5. Select the hard drive to erase
6. Click the Erase tab
7. Select the volume format from the Volume Format pop-up menu
8. Click Options
9. Select the checkbox for Zero all data
10. Click OK
11. Click Erase

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Also for those wanting to "Clean" individual files note this section from the technote: Secure Empty Trash

• Note: When you securely empty the Trash, the deleted data cannot be recovered by disk utilities. You should only do this if you have a backup or you are sure you will never need the data again."