How do I erase OS X Tiger from external drive?

[haakon.pettersen]

Is it safe to delete everything (included all hidden files) that is not in that one folder i want to keep, or will that break the firewire harddisk? What files do I keep?

Thanks,
Haakon

 

[Damrod]

Why not copy what you want to keep from the FW-HDD to your Mac, then format the FW-HDD to make sure all is gone from it, then copy the files from your Mac back to the FW-HDD?

 

[ra3ndy]

Removing files from the drive shouldn't upset it's format at all, so you should be fine.

Tho in the interest of being safe, Damrod's suggestion would be good to follow.

 

[Mikuro]

I wondered this myself. See http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265985

Short answer: You can safely delete everything, AFAIK. Keeping your Spotlight folder probably makes sense (if you use Spotlight, that is), but isn't vital.

 

[barhar]

To answer the subject of the post - 'How do I erase OS X Tiger from external drive?' - use 'Disk Utility' (in the '/Applications/Utilities/' folder).

'What files do I keep?' - that is a subjective question; most (people) will keep - the files they created.

'Is it safe to delete everything (included all hidden files) that is not in that one folder i want to keep ...' - yes.

However, if that one folder contains applications - those applications may be dependent on installed 'frameworks' of the '/System/Library/Frameworks/', '/Library/Frameworks/' and / or '~/Library/Frameworks/' folder(s).

If the Macs internal hard disk drive contains the same version of 'Tiger' as is on the external Firewire drive, then the 'frameworks' dependency can be ignored.

But then, there are those applications which create a folder within the '/Library/Application Support/' and / or '~/Library/Application Support/' folder(s) ...

'... or will that break the firewire harddisk?' - no. Formatting, or deleting any or all items installed onto, the external FireWire (hard disk) drive - will not break the drive.

 

[haakon.pettersen]

thanks for replies, it's all gone now. I simply moved everything I didn't want to the trash.

Why not copy what you want to keep from the FW-HDD to your Mac, then format the FW-HDD to make sure all is gone from it, then copy the files from your Mac back to the FW-HDD?

Its not room for much in my internal ibook drive

Thanks again

Haakon