Wiping an iBook clamshell

Yet another option, possibly...

An iBook G3 Clamshell supposedly supports USB booting. If the computer is running Mac OS (8.6 or) 9.x, one idea for an experiment could perhaps be to (re)format a USB flash drive to Mac (HFS+) and then drag-copy the system and utilities to this external drive. Would it be possible to boot from the USB flash drive (and, if so, erase/overwrite the internal hard disk)?

Hi,

Normally, an appropriate bootable Mac system disc would be needed in the optical drive (press the C key).

If you just wish to completely erase/wipe the hard disk, without installing a new operating system, there are few other options.

You could in principle remove the hard drive. Unfortunately, the hard drive is not easily accessible in the iBook. An external USB universal bare drive adapter (similar to the example at https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NV2SPATA/) connected to another Mac or PC could then be used to erase the hard disk.

Another way could perhaps be to look for an ISO CD download of an early Ubuntu PowerPC version.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCDownloads (files may not be easy to find today). Alternatively, an old PowerPC ISO (dban-2.0.0_powerpc.iso) of a wiping utility called DBAN (on a bootable CD with a small Linux system)?

Possible option...

Open System Preferences>Accounts, unlock the lock, click on the little plus icon, make a new admin account, log out & into the new account.

In the same pref pane highlight your old account, click the little minus icon, then use Disk Utility to Secure Erase Free Space.