When I updated to SIERRA, I "lost" the option of SECURE ERASE. That is to say:
1. neither with the tab(s) that use to appear when a window was opened to view TRASH contents,
2. nor using the FINDER's "drop down" menu.
Since I had not changed the HD which came with the 2011 MBPro, there was no intuitive action on Sierra's part to recognize that the machine did not have a SSD or Fusion Drive - but removed the Secure Delete option for Trash anyway even though the "old" (original) HD was still in place.
Nor, I guess, in /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility > Erase.
I realize that that's what happened, and I remain surprised by it, because secure erase is a very desirable feature for the many people who are still running spinning rust.
Edit: There must be a way to secure erase a HDD without booting into an earlier OS than Sierra; would booting into Sierra volume 2 and running
sudo rm -rf -P /Sierra \volume \1
turn the trick? (Note: rm -P is limited to three overwrites.)
Hmmm.. Both
What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support - 12/2016 and
How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support - 1/2017, which were released after Sierra, discuss erasing a disk via Internet Recovery, and
Disk Utility for Mac: Erase a volume using Disk Utility (released two days after Sierra) notes
Note: With a solid-state drive (SSD), secure erase options are not available in Disk Utility. For more security, consider turning on FileVault encryption when you start using your SSD drive.
which implies that secure erase is available in Disk Utility with a HDD.
VERY
!
Is the secure erase option that doesn't exist within macOS 10.12 present in its recovery partition?
Can anybody clarify?
Thanks!
