Preparing iBook to sell

wez99950

Hi,

My old laptop has been sitting in my wardrobe for quite a while so i've been thinking of selling it.
It's an iBook G4 bought back in 2006. Would this even have a selling value?

If it turns out I might get a few bob out of it, what should I do to completely wipe all my info from the laptop? I haven't done a thing to it since I last used it so I'd like to reset it, if that's possible?

Thanks

Jagle

replace the internal HDD and keep it,

replace and sell on

richardjjd

wez99950 wrote: »

It's an iBook G4 bought back in 2006. Would this even have a selling value?

Visit this site which will give you a fairly accurate value. I put in some random values (iBook 12 inch G4 733 MHz 256 MB memory / 500 GB / superdrive) and they quoted €130.

Iomega Man

If you still have the OS disks then wipe it using those and reload the OS.

Jagle

Iomega Man wrote: »

If you still have the OS disks then wipe it using those and reload the OS.

please dont do this, it wont wipe all of the data, but a new one and replace it, reload the OS onto the new one, and keep the old one

K.O.Kiki

Pretty sure Disk Utility gives the option of a 7-pass wipe that overwrites data so often it is unrecoverable.

Jagle

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Pretty sure Disk Utility gives the option of a 7-pass wipe that overwrites data so often it is unrecoverable.

it does, but again, cant be 100% certain, and if you cant be why risk it?
a brand new HDD for 50euro (you can even add this onto the price of the laptop and tell the new owner you have a brand new HDD in there, so there is even less of a chance if an old one dying within a short amount of time)
is so much safer.

would you sell someone all of your personal information?
cos thats what your doing if you leave your old HDD in there

wez99950

Thank you for all the replies - very helpful.

Can i get a new HDD in any computer shop? Is it difficult to replace it myself?
And that's all I have to do? Replace the HDD, give the laptop a wipe and it's good to sell?

SouperComputer

Replacing the HD in an iBook isnt as trivial as most laptops where you just pop two screws and away you go. Its more like 30(ish) screws, two plastic layers as well some thin aluminum pieces. Here's a guide: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iBook-G4-12-Inch-800-MHz-1-2-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/166/1

The multi-pass "secure" wipe offered by Disk Utility is perfectly sufficient for your purposes. The kind of people with the equipment and skills to retreive data from a drive that has been wiped in that manner are not looking for iBooks nor are interested in putting their skills to work to retrieve your data. They have MUCH bigger fish to fry Three passes is(or at least was) good enough for DoD 5220.22-M, which is a military spec, depending on how you interpet it.
More on DoD 5220.22-M: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Industrial_Security_Program#NISP_Operating_Manual_.28DoD_5220.22-M.29
If you are handy with a screwdriver you could swap the drive. Dropping it in somewhere will not be worthwhile as they will be charging you labor to replace the drive.

My vote: Multipass zero if you are concerned about your data then reinstall OS X.

dubmick

Lol at the paranoia in the thread. Just wipe it and flog it!

Time is money and it's not worth your time replacing a hard drive. As the poster said above, that 7 time erase is grand.

Fysh

If you're talking about running 7 passes of shred (or better yet, scrub) from a Linux live CD, the only way someone's getting data back from those drives is if they've got access to an STM and some exceptionally complex disk platter mounting mechanisms, not to mention a lot of extremely expensive and complex software required to perform analysis on said data. And, well, if someone's after you with those sorts of resources just wiping your hard drive won't be anywhere near enough to stop them (chances are they'd just break into your house and rob all your stuff or kidnap you if they wanted your data that badly).

Putting it simply: if it's good enough to be compliant with DoD standards for data destruction, it's good enough for you at home.

My usual approach for such things is to burn a copy of GParted, boot it on the machine in question, open a terminal and invoke shred for 7 passes. I've tested this on a few drives using Photorec afterwards and have been unable to find anything.

Of course, if you keep the drive you don't have to worry about this...but that way lies madness, and an ever-growing pile of hard drives that you've got to make space for :P

wez99950

I did what it told me to do in the manual - used the 2 CDs it came with and chose to erase and install during the process.

is there a way for me to double check that no personal info is left on the computer?

Thanks for the help

Sad Professor

There's no need. If you did an erase and install then everything is gone. A quick glance in the hard drive and Users folder should confirm this.

wez99950

great - thank you! just wanted to make sure before passing it on and i wasn't forgetting to do something