h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think you can zero all data without the disc because you need an operating system that's not on the harddrive (that is one that is on the disc) to run the computer while the hdd is being wiped. I would have thought the software that does the wiping is already installed (utilities folder? sorry can't remember, been a while since I did that in nine).

I've zeroed all data on OS9 quite a few times. It's not that hard. See if you can borrow an install disc from your local mac retailer. Maybe the techtool disc would do it too.

<"Could some one please explain why 'the geek s' always seem to make life 10times more difficult to do anything with computers?

The amount of control they have over what people who actually *do* work on pc's wastes so much money and time that if they just fixed the sodding things like they are supposed to we would have less stress and a better workload all round...rant over...">

Are you really interested or just venting? Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Both...it's one of those weeks.

That sucks! Almost the weekend though Here is the IT point of view (well mine anyhoo - I am sure there are others with better articulated and different views).

We are not just here to fix your machine to keep you working. We are here to look after the employers interests. Often that is fixing your machine to keep you working, but it is not all. It includes stopping as many of the nasty things that can happen to your company as it is possible to do so. That is normally why there are so many controls in place.

The amount of money lost on you (and your collegues) having to spend longer doing a task is a small amount (even spread over a year) compared to some of the things that could happen. The controls put in place are usually there to stop these things happening (or make it harder for it to happen, or easier to recover if it does happen). Some are there to make the IT depts life easier (which lowers the amount of IT people needed, or provides quicker fixes, and should provide a healthier bottom line to the spread sheet). Some are in place to provide legal protection to yourselves, the IT dept and the bosses themselves.

The extra time that you have to do these things has to be weighed against some pretty horrifying scenarios. What if all your confidential data was compromised, or lost, or a competitor got hold of it? What if your domain gets classed as a spammer and all of a sudden no clients receive your email because you are blacklisted? What if your colleague downloads a virus and brings your entire network down? Or downloads copyrighted material? Or you have copyrighted material that you use, but non-authorized copies are made and you get audited? Those last ones might not sound bad - but the maximum sentence is 10 years in prison and £100K fine for EACH infringement (that can apply to the user, the IT dept, and the upper management). What if it is not just unauthorised but actually illegal stuff?

Some less horrifying things that cause controls to put in place are where data or services are shared amongst many people. An accident can stop a whole department from doing their work. Or clogs up the email server so no messages are going out or coming in for a day. Or the employees pay cannot be processed.

This is some of the fun and games that cause controls to be put in place. We are, normally, sorry about the extra time and effort that it causes, but not sorry enough to put the entire business at risk because of it. Most IT people I have met like to help people, they try and balance the conflicting needs of everyone, and mitigate (as much as possible) the problems that they cause.

I hope this provides a bit of insight from the other side of the fence Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

I hope this

I'm not complaining about the department - they're some of the more fun people to have around, too, and the number of times they've saved my bacon by plotting my posters at the last minute...

It's just rather annoying that they hoard all the discs. They should let you pass a competence test and then hand them out

Just not to everybody *shudder* - controls were tightened and more s hired when one of our (ageing, mostly computer illiterate) profs, who had access to the main network so he could upload things for the students, deliberately uploaded a suspicious file with the question "is this a virus?" It was, of course, and the Uni network was down for three whole days

Which is another reason I'm glad we mostly have Macs - given the average professor's grasp of computers, it just means that there's less they can break.



That doesn't really solve my problem now, though Maybe it's time to bake for the IT guys again - they seem to appreciate it when you do that - and play the poor, weak female card so they'll do it for me

Hooray, I found the install discs!

I briefly scanned the backlog here and haven't seen any proper suggestions. You need to run a program that will properly erase your hard drive. What these programs do is not ONLY erase the data, they write over the sectors repeatedly with useless data. By the time they are done there is NO data left on the hard drive.

If you do a search for "erase hard drive Mac DOD" you'll find such programs. (Adding the DOD part makes sure that they conform to the U.S. Department of Defense specifications for security.)

For instance I found this concerning Mac OS 10.4's Disk Utility erase options: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303462

Use the "7-Pass Erase" option.

There are also second party programs available.

"Second Party"?... I meant "Third Party" of course... I think I need a second party to undo the damage the first party must have done to my thinking and memory thingy.

Yes, I'd searched for that - but as this is a G4 with OS 9.2, there is no built-in utility, and the second-party ones are no longer supported (or even downloadable)...

I've initialised the HDD, but that doesn't do much if someone is determined, of course. Any suggestions on how to fill it up/overwrite manually? Big picture files?

third party, of course

There's bound to be something that does this for legacy Mac OS's but since I'm not a Mac guy I'm not sure where to look.

You said you found the install disks. Does the version of Disk Utility you have not have this option?

If not, all I can suggest is keep searching (or get a Mac savvy to search for you.)

Good Luck.

Gentoo Linux live-cd for powerpc: http://bouncer.gentoo.org/fetch/gentoo-2008.0_beta1-livecd/ppc64/

You have to burn the downloaded file as a disk image, not as a file, in order to create a bootable cd.

For more information, visit the Gentoo home site: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml

To create a bootable cd under mac OS, launch Disk Utility, click burn, a file selection dialog box will appear, locate your .iso file and click burn. After that, it'll ask you for recorder settings, a blank disc, and burn the contents of the image to a CD exactly.

Or burn from the command line: hdiutil burn /path/to/your/image.iso

You can also create bootable cds that will work on macs, using Linux, or even winduhs

Once you have the live cd, boot it, (I think you have to hold down the 'c' key), then run dd utility as previously described. You can run it three or four times, and alternately substitute '/dev/urandom' for 'dev/zero', in the command line

If the hard disk is divided into partitions, you can selectively zero the one(s) containing sensitive data. This speeds up the process and offers the potential of retaining useful system files/apps etc. intact.

Zeroing hard disks/partitions in this manner prevents all but the expert data recovery geeks from recovering data.

If you are truly paranoid, you can always nuke the thing from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...

If you ever need to erase data from CD/DVDs, stick them in a microwave. This scrambles the data even better than shattering them, and you can do a whole batch in 10 seconds. And you get a cool light show as a bonus.


And NO, it doesn't hurt the microwave unless you leave them in too long and they catch fire.