how to wipe a ibook m6497

Boot from the install disk and follow the instructions to do an erase and install of the OS.

If you have another Mac handy you can boot the iBook in Target Disk Mode and erase it from the other Mac—a PC might be able to recognise the iBook when it's in Target Disk Mode and allow you to do the same thing but I'm not sure.

Otherwise you'll need to take the hard drive out and transfer it to a computer that can erase it.

If it's just a matter of getting your personal data off, however, you can create a new admin account, switch over to that account, and delete the account you used. Unless you had a habit of storing personal information outside of your home directory everything will be deleted when you delete your account.

No need to take the disc out. A linux Live CD for PPC will do what you want. There are several distros out there that run on Macs. After that you can use dd to zero out the drive.

Seablade

I didn't even think about that. Good solution.

Several more options, in case you have not already selected one of the others.

1) As mentioned, you could connect your 'target/destination" Mac via Firewire cable to another Mac running OS X, and use the second Mac DiskUtility to Format with Write Zeros (as many times as believed desirable) onto the target Mac HD. This of course destroys the OS (Operating System) so the machine will not boot again until someone installs OS X again.
A PC will not recognize a Mac in this manner.

If you want to keep the existing Mac OS X, download one or several of the secure erase programs. As you probably already know, merely deleting a file by throwing them in the trash does not delete the data, it just removes the directory name and data pointers.

2) Erase file by secure delete after dragging them to the trash.
If you want to keep the existing Mac OS X, download the free Permanent Eraser from Edenwaith. http://www.edenwaith.com/products/permanent%20eraser/
It runs a very secure -and very long- delete process.

3) If you have already deleted some or most files by Trashing, use one of the other tools to also erase/overwrite free space. (free space of course includes anything that you ever had on the drive but then trashed.)
- Trash X from Norther Softworks. $9 or so, but has 30-day tryout.
- ShredIt X from Mireth. $25.
and some others.

Note that if you use a non-Apple method to totally erase the HD down to low level, it may also remove the protected Apple machine serial number... if that is important to you.

Disk Utility should have a format free space option with the extended security formatting options available to it. No need for a third party product