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How to Erase External Drives Securely Using Disk Utility on MacOS – Guide
Your computer and the external drives you use store all of your personal information. Your computer’s drive contains all your emails, contacts, documents and more – in others words, any sensitive information you don’t want to share with anyone. Hackers who want to exploit data that give access to passwords or their identity are particularly interested in obtaining this data. Before you get rid of your old computer, whether you throw it away or sell it, you should make sure that all this data is securely erased from your drive so that no one can access it.
Erasing an uninitialized volume
Erasing a volume is an easy way to free up up disk space. Many multimedia applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, need a large amount of contiguous disk space to function efficiently. Erasing a volume is a faster way to create that space than using third-party defrag tools. Because the process erases all data on a volume, some multimedia savvy individuals create small volumes to store data for one project and then erase the volume before starting the next project.
The data erasure method described here does not address any security issues that may be associated with erased data. Most data recovery programs can resurrect deleted data using this process. If you are concerned about security, use the secure erase procedure discussed later in this guide.
Securely erase a volume
Disk Utility provides four options for safely erasing data on a volume. Options include a basic erase method, a slightly more secure erase method, and two erase methods that meet or exceed the US Department of Defense requirements for erasing sensitive data from hard drives.
If you are concerned that someone will recover the data you are about to erase, use this secure erase method.
Options for OS X Snow Leopard and earlier:
Do not delete data:
This method is quick but not secure. It removes the volume catalog directory but leaves the actual data intact.
Reset data:
This method offers a good level of security. It erases data from the volume by writing over it with zeros. How long this method takes depends on the size of the volume.
Deletion of 7 tickets:
This method meets the security requirements of the US Department of Defense 5220-22M standards for erasing magnetic media. This erasure method can take a long time.
Deletion of 35 passes:
This is the highest level of data deletion security supported by Disk Utility. It overwrites data on a volume 35 times. Don’t expect this method of erasure to end anytime soon.
Options for OS X Lion through OS X Yosemite
The Secure Erase Options drop-down menu presents options similar to those in previous versions of the operating system, but uses a slider to make choices rather than a list of options. The slider options are:
The fastest:
This is the fastest erase method. It does not scramble the file data, which means that a recovery application might be able to resurrect the deleted data.
Reset the data:
This erase method writes a single path of zeros to all locations on the selected volume or disk. Advanced recovery techniques can restore data but would require a lot of time and effort.
Three passes:
This is a DOE compliant three-pass secure erase. It writes two random data passes to the volume or disk and then writes a single pass of a known data pattern to the volume or disk.
Safer:
This method of securely erasing a volume or disk meets the requirements of the US Department of Defense (DOD) standard 5220-22M for secure erasure of magnetic media. The erased volume is written seven times to ensure the data cannot be restored
Erasing or Formatting a Mac Startup Drive Using Disk Utility
Disk Utility cannot directly erase or format a startup disk because Disk Utility and all the system functions it uses are located on that disk. If Disk Utility tried to erase the startup disk at some point, it would erase itself, which would present a problem. To work around this, use Disk Utility from a source other than the startup disk. One option is the OS X installation DVD, if you have one, which includes Disk Utility. Macs without optical drives use the recovery volume.
Using the OS X Installation DVD
restart your mac
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