Diane Joyner

How do I wipe my Mac hard drive using Terminal?

Helpful tips

How do I wipe my Mac hard drive using Terminal?

Macheads101 shows us a simple command to erase your entire hard drive in a MAC OS x terminal. You can either log in as administrator and simply type “rm -rf /” to format or you can just type “Sudo rm -rf /” to start.

How do I delete my hard drive from command prompt?

Wipe hard drive with Command Prompt Type cmd from the Search box after clicking Start in Windows 7. Right click cmd.exe or command prompt from the list and select “Run as administrator”. 2. Type format F: /fs:NTFS (replace F with the correct drive letter) and press Enter.

How do you delete everything off a Mac?

From the Apple menu  in the corner of your screen, choose System Preferences. From the System Preferences menu in the menu bar, choose Erase All Content and Settings.

How do I wipe an external hard drive on a Mac?

Choose View > Show All Devices. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button .

How do I wipe my Mac and reinstall?

Restart your Mac. Choose Apple menu > Shut Down, press and hold the power button until “Loading startup options” appears, select Options, click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions. In the Recovery app window, select Reinstall for your macOS release, click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions.

How do you wipe a Mac?

Use Erase All Content and Settings in System Preferences From the Apple menu  in the corner of your screen, choose System Preferences. From the System Preferences menu in the menu bar, choose Erase All Content and Settings.

How do I completely erase a hard drive?

Go to Settings > Change PC Settings > Update and recovery > Recovery. Click Get Started under the Remove everything and reinstall Windows section. Click Next, then choose Fully clean the drive to ensure everything is deleted. Click the Reset button and your drive is wiped, your PC is reset, and Windows is reinstalled.

How do I permanently destroy a hard drive?

6 Smart Ways To Destroy a Hard Drive (Permanently)

  1. Data-Wiping Programs.
  2. Brute Force.
  3. Drilling Holes.
  4. Overwriting.
  5. Heat/Fire.
  6. Acid.

How do I completely erase an external hard drive?

Wiping Your Old External Hard Drive

  1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer.
  2. Open your Disk Utility App.
  3. Select the drive you want to wipe clean (just to be sure you don’t erase the wrong hard drive, disconnect any other external hard drives and double-check that the correct drive is selected)
  4. Click Erase.

How do I permanently delete an external hard drive?

Go to Applications, select Utilities, and double-click on Disk Utility. In the sidebar, click on the USB drive you want to format and then choose Erase from the top toolbar. In the drop-down window, under Name, type a name for the drive. Choose a format option.

How do I completely format my Mac?

How to reset a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro

  1. Hold down the Command and R keys on the keyboard and turn on the Mac.
  2. Select your language and continue.
  3. Choose Disk Utility and click Continue.
  4. Choose your startup disk (named Macintosh HD by default) from the sidebar and click the Erase button.

Does recovery mode delete everything Mac?

No, Recovery Mode does not delete everything on Mac – at least by itself. It is just a state or mode that lets users access special tools, but it does not do anything by itself. However, there are certain tools that can delete data on your Mac, namely: Time Machine.

How do I wipe my Mac and start fresh?

How to factory reset MacBook and Mac desktops

  1. Make a fresh backup of your Mac.
  2. Open System Preferences.
  3. Click System Preferences in the menu bar > Erase All Contents and Settings.
  4. Follow the prompts to fully erase your Mac.
  5. Like iOS, the new erase process in macOS Monterey handles everything to fully wipe your Mac.

How do I factory reset my Mac Big Sur?

Choose Apple menu > Restart, then immediately press and hold Command-R. In the Recovery app window, select Disk Utility, then click Continue. In Disk Utility, select the volume you want to erase in the sidebar, then click Erase in the toolbar.

How do you reset an external hard drive on a Mac?

How to format an external drive in OS X

  1. Connect the drive to the Mac.
  2. Open Disk Utility.
  3. Select the drive you want to format.
  4. Click Erase.
  5. Give the drive a descriptive name and leave the default settings: OS X Extended format and GUID partition map.
  6. Click Erase and OS X will format the drive.

How to Erase Disk from command line on Mac?

To erase a disk from the command line on the Mac, we’ll use the familiar “diskutil” command with the eraseDisk verb and other appropriate flags to specify options for how we want to erase the disk, and to identify which disk is to be erased.

How to clear hard drive on MacBook Air Terminal?

Working with Terminal. Start off by running the following command in the command line: Diskutil list. This is going to list all the mounted drives on your Mac. Once you have found the proper drive to erase, just copy its identifier so you can use it for the next command.

How do I erase a storage device on a Mac?

Erasing a storage device deletes everything on it. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device. Open the Disk Utility app on your Mac using one of the following methods, depending on the type of disk or volume you want to erase:

How to manage external hard drive on Mac?

You can open the Terminal app on your Mac by launching Finder from Dock and then navigating to Applications > Utilities > Terminal. Terminal helps you manage your external hard drive far better than the GUI. All you need to do is enter the required Terminal command, then hit Return. The app will execute the requested command immediately.