How to use disk utility to erase Mac drive | Complete wipe with disk utility

If you are facing problem to startup your Mac normally, you may need to use a disk repair utility to fix the issue. In some situations, file system errors may create problem to boot the system or small problems in disk creates critical issue for Mac users. This can occur after an improper shutdown, forced restart, or power interruption. If your computer shows any of the following symptoms on startup, then you must be alert and find the solution as soon as possible. There are two methods to resolve this problem —Disk Utility and command-line utility. The Mac Disk Utility is a versatile tool that helps Mac users to format hard drives, erase or copy CDs and DVDs and create virtual images of physical discs.

Formatting a hard drive is conceptually the same as erasing it. By default, Disk Utility erases only the information which is used to access the files, not the data in the files. Therefore, the erased files can be recovered by any data recovery software. If you need to erase a disk so that the files cannot be recovered by anyone, you can select security options within the utility i.e., write zeros over the disk space. Disk utility runs OS X 10.3.x or above Mac version. Before wiping data please keep backup.

How to Use Disk Utility to Erase a Macintosh Hard Drive

• Open Disk Utility window, click the drive you want to erase.
• In the right pane of the Disk Utility window, click the Erase tab.
• From the Volume Format drop-down menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
• You will see the following are the available security options:
  

Don't Erase Data—This option only rewrites the headers on the disk. Files can be recovered by forensics, disk utilities, and other advanced recovery software.

Zero Out Data—There are forensics utilities that, albeit expensive and time consuming, can retrieve zeroed-out data.

7-Pass Erase—This is considered sufficient by government standards to erase data from a disk. It writes random data over the disk seven times. It may take several hours or more to complete this process.

35-Pass Erase—This makes it absolutely impossible to regain any data off the drive. This option takes an extremely long time, possibly more than one day.

• Click the radio button in front of 7-Pass Erase or Zero Out Data(For wiping).
• Click OK.
• Click Erase.
• Confirm you want to erase and done.
  

These are the simple steps by which you can format Mac hard drive easily.