The following steps are intended to help you prepare a machine to be surplussed, by overwriting all data and free space on each functioning hard drive attached to the machine. These instructions are intended for machines that are still functioning properly. If you computer is malfunctioning and you cannot access one or more of the hard drives, then before you surplus the machine you may want to have someone remove the hard drive from the machine and use other methods to assure that data cannot be retrieved from the drive. The following steps may or may not work for servers (with special hard drive configurations such as RAID) or some machines with SCSI type hard drives.

For Macintosh:

1. Backup all files you want to keep before continuing.
    
2. Boot from your Macintosh System CDROM.
   1. Insert a Macintosh System CDROM into your CDROM drive.
   2. Go the the Apple icon, select 'Control Panels', select 'startup disk', and then in this window, select your system cd.
   3. Click on a blank area of your computer's desktop (this makes 'finder' the active program).
   4. From the 'Special' pull-down menu, choose 'restart'.
   5. Your system should boot from the CDROM. If it did not, please try these steps again. (On newer versions of Macintosh OSes, holding down the 'C' key after you turn your machine on will also cause it to try to boot from the cdrom drive.)
   6. If you get an error message about trying to start up your AppleTalk connection, just press the 'OK' button, or otherwise close the window.
       
3. Locate the Hard Disk formatting utility.
   1. If the window with the contents of the CDROM is not open, locate the CDROM icon on your desktop and double-click it.
   2. (Because folder structures, file names, and available utilities vary between different versions of Macintosh System CDROMs, the following steps will offer a couple of known file and folder names. Try to use the programs or folder names in the order they appear. For example, if you find icons for 'Drive Setup' and 'Apple HD SC Setup', use 'Drive Setup' and its instructions since it was specified first. Then, if you experience problems, you should use the second specified program 'Apple HD SC Setup'.)
   3. Within the window containing the CDROM's contents, double-click the 'Utilities' folder (or 'Disk Tools' or other similar folder).
   4. Within the 'Utilities' (or 'Disk Tools' or other similar) window, locate the following programs / icons in this order:
      1. 'Drive Setup'
      2. 'Apple HD SC Setup' or close derivative.
   5. Follow the instructions below for the utility you found. There is also a section below for 'Last Ditch' erase procedures in the unlikely event that neither of these two utilities work for you.
       
4. Formatting Utilities
   1. Recommended: Using 'Drive Setup' to write zeros to your hard disk(s).
      1. Double-click on the 'Drive Setup' icon you located.
      2. Select the 'Functions' pull-down menu and then choose 'Initialization options...' (the word initialization may be misspelled with an 's' in some versions of Macintosh System CD)
      3. Click to place a check mark in front of 'zero all data' and then press the 'OK' button.
      4. Select your hard disk from the 'list of drives / volume name(s)' window.
         • If your machine has more than one hard disk (CDROM drives do not count), then after initialization has finished, please return to the above step to repeat the zero data erasure procedure for other hard disks you have in your system.
      5. Click the 'Initialize' button.
      6. On the next window, there will be another 'Initialize' button. Click it to begin the erase procedure.
      7. Depending on the size of your hard disk and the speed of your machine, the erasure process may take several minutes to an hour to complete. A progress bar should appear to help you gauge how long the erase will take.
      8. When finished, remember to go back and erase any other hard disks that reside in your machine.
      9. Please skip ahead to the section called 'Remove all floppies and CDROMs from the machine'.
          
   2. Alternate: Using 'Apple HD SC Setup' (or similar) to initialize to your hard disk(s).
      1. Double-click on the 'Apple HD SC Setup' icon you located.
      2. Press the 'Initialize' button.
      3. When it asks 'Do you want to Initialize this disk', press the 'Init' button.
      4. If you get an error message that states 'The disk could not be initialized', then you will have to use a different program (such as 'Drive Setup') to perform the initialization.
      5. Follow any further on-screen prompts.
      6. When Initialization has completed, you should be returned to the main menu.
      7. If you have any other hard disks in the system that have not been initialized, use the 'drive' button to select them, and then perform the initialization (according to the steps above) again for each additional hard disk in the system.
      8. When you are finished, press the 'Quit' button.
      9. Please ahead skip to the section called 'Remove all floppies and CDROMs from the machine'.
          
   3. Sub-alternate: 'Last Ditch' erase procedures.
      1. If you are unable to find or erase your drive(s) with 'Drive Setup' or 'Apple HD SC Setup', then you could perform a less secure form of hiding files as outlined in these steps. (Files deleted in this manner, although hidden, may be restored with common disk utility programs widely available in stores or on the Internet).
      2. On your desktop, single-click the icon which represents your hard disk. (Although most systems do not have more than one hard disk, if yours does, you may need to perform these steps for each hard disk present).
      3. Select the 'special' pulldown menu.
      4. Select 'erase disk'.
      5. Click the 'erase' button.
      6. When that is done (it only takes a few seconds), look for the 'format' field. To the far right of that entry may be a button with an up and down arrow on it. Click that button. Please take note of each partition that appears in this list. You will need to select each partition, one at a time, and erase it in the same manner.
      7. If you have multiple drives in your macintosh, please go back and repeat the erasure steps above for the other drives.
          
5. Remove all floppies and CDROMs from the machine.
   1. To remove a floppy diskette, you have to be booted into the Macintosh Operating system (for example, boot from the CDROM), and then take the icon of the floppy drive and place it in the trash can.
   2. To remove the CDROM, perform the same activity as with the floppy diskette described above.
   3. If you get an error message because you have booted from the CDROM, then try these steps:
      1. shut down the system
      2. wait a few seconds
      3. turn it back on
      4. immediately press the eject button on the CDROM. It should eject.
      5. (In this case, if you have properly erased the hard disk(s), then your system should not boot, and will probably display a picture of a floppy diskette with a flashing question mark).
   4. If none of the above steps work or you no longer have power to the system, there is often a tiny hole just under each drive door opening. Insert a paperclip into this hole to manually eject the floppy diskette or the CDROM. For a CDROM drive, you may have to slowly pull the tray open to get the CD out, and carefully push it closed again when you are done.
       
6. Surplus the machine.
   1. (Don't forget to report the surplus to your department's inventory tracking person)

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Return to regular view	Text-only	Updated: 2/13/2007