Hi Jim,
This is what I am thinking I will have to do now. First, I just remembered that the iMac only has Jaguar anyway.
Second, even if it did have secure empty trash, I am not sure that I would feel comfortable using it for this kind of thing. It is not like this friend is really going to snoop as he wouldn't have known which files were on their originally but still, why risk it.
Fortunately, I just purchased a second external Firewire drive yesterday and it still has loads of space on it. So copying the 20 gig hard drive of the iMac to it and then zeroing the data, seems like a good plan.
And of course I will be thanking the owner profusely :-)
Thanks again for your suggestions !
Amber
On 20-Mar-05, at 6:49 PM, Jim Scott wrote:
Amber,
Putting your files in the trash and then emptying the trash is not very secure, as you suspect. There are programs ($$$$$) that will do the job, but why spend the money for a one-time thing?
If it were my personal financial files, here's what I'd do:
1) Erase all of my personal financial files I could find.
2) Copy the entire contents of the hard drive to an external hard drive, or DVD, or via firewire (if you've got it) to another Mac.
3) Erase the iMac's hard drive, then reformat it and write zeros at least three times, then initialize it in its original format (HFS+).
4) Finally, I would copy the contents of the external drive back to the iMac, and thank the owner for letting you borrow it.
Jim
On Mar 20, 2005, at 6:04 PM, Amber wrote:
Hi,
I need to delete some files permanently from an iMac I have been borrowing. They were personal financial files and I do not want the owner to have access to them.
I am pretty sure that just putting the files in the trash and emptying it is not really that secure. Is there anyway to be sure that these files could not be "undeleted" or retrieved without erasing the hard drive or zeroing it out ?
Amber
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