In this section of Disk Utility, you will be able to select a few different erase options that will also add security to the standard disk erase. Once you select the drive, click the Erase tab, and click Security options. The disk drive will most likely have a FireWire icon to denote that it is connected as an external disk. Note that you should click on the drive, and not the partition (often called 'Macintosh HD') to ensure a complete disk wipe. Open Disk Utility.app on your new Mac (located in /Applications/Utilities), and click on your old Mac hard drive in the selection area on the left. When in FDM, your old Mac's hard drive should show up on the new Mac as a connected external FireWire drive. After a few moments, you should see a FireWire symbol appear on the screen - when you see this, you are in FireWire Disk Mode (FDM). Shut down the old Mac that will be receiving the hard drive cleaning, and reboot it while holding down the 'T' key on your keyboard. Step 2: Boot into Target Disk Mode on the old Mac Once you have the FireWire cable, just simply connect the two computers together. If one has only a 400 port and the other has only an 800 port, a converter cable (available online for less than $10) is what you need. If both of the Macs support FireWire 800, you can use one of those cables as an alternative to 400 it will be faster.

If you don't have one of these cables, you can easily pick up one online or at a retail store. You will also need a FireWire 400 cable so you can connect one end to the old Mac, and the other end to another Mac. I'm going to show you how to wipe the hard drive using Target Disk Mode, since this will work even if you don't have the install disks.īoth of the Macs will need to have FireWire, which means everything between the iMac DV and the current lineup (except for the MacBook Air and unibody MacBook) is eligible.

So, we thought we would take a minute to tell you how you can cleanse your hard drives before getting rid of your computer. She wanted to know how she could clear/reformat the hard drive, but didn't have the disks that came with the system. A reader recently contacted us with a question regarding her decision to recycle an older iMac computer.

Mac target disk mode