# Can I use my macbook pro to wipe a internall hdd externally?



## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

I just inherited an absolute boat load of perfectly working Hard disk drive's from my IT professional uncle who passed away unfortunately. I would like to sell them on ebay to help pay for funeral expenses and the like.

Some of these drives have sensitive information possibly about his clients and do not want to bring trouble back on the family.

Is there a way to wipe these internal hard drives using my macbook pro? Do I just need a internal hard drive enclosure and then just use the firewire port to connect. What is the fastest and best way to wipe them? I have over 100 1 terabyte drives.


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## WizardGebbia (Jun 26, 2011)

Just remove your existing hdd and put each hard drive in. Also insert the osx DVD too and bring up the install window and then go to top of tool bar and click utilities then disk utility and you can erase and format each hard drive without installing an os on it. When you complete one power down comp and install another hdd.


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## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

WizardGebbia said:


> Just remove your existing hdd and put each hard drive in. Also insert the osx DVD too and bring up the install window and then go to top of tool bar and click utilities then disk utility and you can erase and format each hard drive without installing an os on it. When you complete one power down comp and install another hdd.



Uh my existing hdd is a laptop hdd and these are all desktop drives. Also not too fond of opening up my laptop in order to do this. Is there some other way?


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## WizardGebbia (Jun 26, 2011)

Then you'll have to get a USB hard drive enclosure. Are the desktop hard drive EIDE IDE or sata ??


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## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

WizardGebbia said:


> Then you'll have to get a USB hard drive enclosure. Are the desktop hard drive EIDE IDE or sata ??


They are sata I believe or EIDE. Also what if I do not have the start up disk on me?


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## kc7cwx (May 30, 2011)

Finder>applications>utilities>disk utility


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## dm01 (Oct 10, 2006)

You don't just want to format the drives, you need to shred them with at least DoD-level algorithms. Guttman's algorithm is preferred, but it takes a while. Just formatting the drives will still leave recoverable traces of the old data.

There are plenty of free programs that will do this.


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## WizardGebbia (Jun 26, 2011)

You want to zero out the drives that will ensure that the drives are completely wiped out.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

The answer is yes you can. You need to get one of these adapters to connect the drives. Once you have the drive plugged in, open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder in the Applications folder on your Mac. Once it is opened, look at the left pane. There you will see the disks listed with partitions in a nested view. Select on the icon for the hard disk it's self, not one of it's partitions, then click on the Erase tab in the main window. Towards the bottom there is a button named Security Options..., click on that. Now click the circle next to 35-Pass and click OK. Now select the format you want the disk in, Mac OS Extended is fine and then the Erase button at the bottom. Now go to bed. I do not know how long it'll take, but over night at least. Now the disk will be about as clean as you can get it.


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## WizardGebbia (Jun 26, 2011)

A 35 pass on a 500gb is about 3-4 days. 7 pass should be ok. And then after that zero out option for the unallocated space where files may be hidden.


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## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

It says 24 hours for 1 terabyte drive! Even with the Zero out option it says 8 hours. This is going to take over a month for all these drives! Isn't there a faster way? I don't think these drives will be worth anything by then. Lol! Oh yeah and don't get me started on the 6 scsi 15.5RPM Seagate Cheetah 300GB super valuable, but I can't wipe them drives!


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Nope, there is no faster way, as it has to move all the internal parts. You've reached the limits of their mechanicals. Oh course more adapters means more drives formatting at once, but each will still take that long.


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## WizardGebbia (Jun 26, 2011)

24 hours is not that long just do one per night and in the morning if it's still doing it you can still use the comp. Just don't restart the thing. You be assured that if you do sell them that there is absolutely noting on them. You could just highlight all the files and just delete them but the deleted items can be recovered that's the difference. Whenever you delete something it winds up becoming what's called unallocated space. So if you do just delete it by selecting it all and delete, you will still need to zero out the unallocated space. That should only take mmmmmm 4-8 hours.


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## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

Power went out while I was formatting one of the 1 terrabyte drives. It had got through 6 out of the 8 hours when the power went out. I should have connected my laptop to an ups, had to do it all over. 

So any ideas on the scsi drives?

Thanks for your help by the way!


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

Use a really big magnet, or take the SCSI drives apart. I haven't seen anything with SCSI in years. With SATA, SCSI has really left the main stream. There are no consumer products that I can think of that support it.


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## Amd_Man (Jan 27, 2009)

I'm not an Apple guy, but would this work for the SCSI drives so they can be wiped on the Mac?

Cables To Go USB To SCSI-2 Adapter CableMale 21400 in Canada at TigerDirect.ca

EDIT: if you can find one.


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## chupacabra31 (Jan 2, 2009)

Amd_Man said:


> I'm not an Apple guy, but would this work for the SCSI drives so they can be wiped on the Mac?
> 
> Cables To Go USB To SCSI-2 Adapter CableMale 21400 in Canada at TigerDirect.ca
> 
> EDIT: if you can find one.


I think that is more for external scsi devices, IE have a separate power source. These are internal scsi drives, so how would I power the drives?


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## WizardGebbia (Jun 26, 2011)

You need a special scusi adaptor either pci or ISA type for a desktop of course. I'm not too sure about if they have ones you can hook to laptop haven't heard of any.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

You could use the same power brick that the other USB adapter has.


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