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From: jspear@afit-ab.arpa (Jon L. Spear)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: How to make an unitialized disk
Message-ID: <239@afit-ab.arpa>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 12:35:26 EST
Article-I.D.: afit-ab.239
Posted: Fri Oct 23 12:35:26 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 15:05:56 EST
References: <464@aucs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jspear@afit-ab.arpa (Jon L. Spear)
Distribution: na
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology; WPAFB, OH
Lines: 14
Summary: Deguass it

The "best" way to make a formatted disk uninitialized is to degauss it.
This can be done in a few seconds with a fairly inexpensive handheld
device intended for erasing cassette tapes, and can be bought at your
neighborhood Radio Shack.  Of course, all information on the disk (and
any other disks within a few inches of the device) will be erased.  So
be careful.

In a pinch, a small (but bigger than the average stick-paper-on-
refrigerator magnet) permanent magnet passed over the diskette shell
will erase enough of a disk to make it unreadable such that the Mac will
think it uninitialized.  However, too powerful a magnet could (has never
happened to me) damage the disk.  Also, a determined person will probably
be able to read some information from these disks.

-Jon (jspear@afit-ab.arpa - return address above may be wrong)