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    Unable to Perform Secure Erase on Time Capsule

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by savechief, Sep 3, 2009.

  1. savechief

    savechief Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm trying to perform a secure erase (I've tried both 1-pass and 7-pass options), and it's seemingly not working. I left a 1-pass going while I was at work yesterday (a total of 12 hours from when I left to when I got home) and the progress bar didn't move any farther than it had during the first 5 minutes it had been running. Same thing with a 7-pass last night (8 hours). I know it takes a while, but my 500GB TC should have completed at least one pass in that kind of time frame (right?).

    TC plugged into cable modem. Airport utility on iMac talking to TC over WiFi. As soon as I click "Erase", the TC status light begins blinking amber just like the popup tells you that it will. "Candy cane" status bar in Airport utility comes on for about 10 seconds, then a solid blue status bar creeps out a few millimeters after that, then stays that way for hours. I'm stuck...any ideas?
     
    savechief, Sep 3, 2009
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  2. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    not sure about your exact situation... but...

    I had an external hard drive a long time ago (in 10.3 i think) that was hanging the same trying to do secure erase... I did a non-secure erase and then went back to do a secure erase and it still didn't work. Just for testing.. for some reason I tried erasing it standard and formatting it with FAT32 instead of HFS... which worked.. then when I went back and told it to do a secure erase on it, it then worked... was really weird.
     
    doh123, Sep 3, 2009
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