Ease Time Machine

[Kentman47]

Hello all,

I have purchased and install a new time machine (3 TB) and was going to sell the old smaller one, but I want to permanently erase all the data securely before I sell it. How do I do this please?

I'm new to Macs so not too savvy.

It was connected to a Mac Book Pro but is not now.

Thanks in advance Andy

 

[oldscribe]

Hi and welcome,

Plug in the external drive you want to format then go to your applications folder on the dock and find your utilities folder. There will be a utility called "Disk Utility" open it IE click on the icon

In the left side of the new window you will see all of your drives. Select the TM back up drive. Then, in the main part of the window you will see "first aid | erase | RAID | restore" click on erase.

In the new drop down menu, select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" if it's not already selected. Under name, put what you want.

Hope this helps.

 

[Kentman47]

Hi and welcome,

Plug in the external drive you want to format then go to your applications folder on the dock and find your utilities folder. There will be a utility called "Disk Utility" open it IE click on the icon

In the left side of the new window you will see all of your drives. Select the TM back up drive. Then, in the main part of the window you will see "first aid | erase | RAID | restore" click on erase.

In the new drop down menu, select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" if it's not already selected. Under name, put what you want.

Hope this helps.

Very many thanks i'll give it a try..

 

[Kentman47]

Do I need to be connected with a USB cable? I have plug in the power and used an ethernet cable to connect the TM with the Mac Book Pro but It not showing the TM. Only the Mac HD.


I guess when I want to erase the Mac HD drive I just select the Mac HD instead of TM?

Thanks Andy

 

[oldscribe]

Hi Andy,




Yes plug the external drive via USB into the Macbook Pro the follow the steps in my first post.

I guess when I want to erase the Mac HD drive I just select the Mac HD instead of TM?

Personally No do not do that, if ever you want to sell the Mac and erase the drive, use the OS X installation discs that came with the machine. To erase and reinstall.

 

[Kentman47]

Many thanks. I need to get a USB to USB cable and go from there.

Thanks again Andy

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Your welcome, and as I said re selling Macook is to reinstall OS X using the disks that came with your machine. Just pop in the OS X disk and reinstall the OS. Make sure you choose the "erase" option that will actually scramble/overwrite all data on your hard drive first.

This is very easy to do and will only take about 1/2 hour to complete.

 

[Kentman47]

Thanks agian!

Not sure if I still have the disks that came with the Mac Book pro.. I'll have to have a search.

Thanks Andy.