Completely erasing iPad data?

[Gotmilk0112]

So I'm selling off an old iPad, and was wondering if there's any special things I should do when wiping it clean?

I'm mostly worried about the various jailbreak stuff on it. I just want to make sure that I can wipe the hard drive completely clean in a way that will prevent a future owner from using tools to recover "deleted" data.

I was told to just turn off Find My iPhone, sign out of iCloud, and then use the "reset all data" thing in iOS. Will that safely nuke EVERYTHING on the hard drive, though?

I was also told that I have to "remove the SIM card" before selling it...why do I have to remove the SIM card? Doesn't that disable the 3G? I'm wanting to sell it as a 3G iPad, not a WiFi iPad.

 

[J. A.]

If it's jailbroken, you shouldn't use "Erase all content and settings" in Settings - General - Reset. Restore it to factory settings using iTunes.

 

[Gotmilk0112]

If it's jailbroken, you shouldn't use "Erase all content and settings" in Settings - General - Reset. Restore it to factory settings using iTunes.

And that will completely erase/reformat the hard drive?

Alrighty!

 

[J. A.]

Restoring will remove everything. Just remember not to restore from a backup.

You have to remove the SIM card from your iPad. The next owner will have to organize a SIM card for himself. You don't remove the SIM card tray, so it's still a Wi- Fi & cellular iDevice.

 

[Gotmilk0112]

Restoring will remove everything. Just remember not to restore from a backup.

You have to remove the SIM card from your iPad. The next owner will have to organize a SIM card for himself. You don't remove the SIM card tray, so it's still a Wi- Fi & cellular iDevice.

Ah, alrighty. Was just a tad confused since I'm not entirely sure how SIM cards work.

 

[twerppoet]

Probably not. Most likely it simply erases the equivalent of the directory blocks; it's not exactly a hard drive.

So, some data may still exist. I haven't heard of any recovery tools that would let someone get it back on the iPad, but I suppose it's possible. At the extreme, I suppose someone could dismantle the iPad, remove the memory, and use specialized tools to recover data directly from the chips. You're talking CIA level data recovery here.

I wouldn't worry about it myself, but if I were super paranoid I'd probably go for this approach.

Restore the iPad as normal. Without re-associateing it with your old iCloud account, fill it to the gills with data. Slo-mo video would probably be the fastest way to do this. Restore it again. Repeat a few times if you're data is so important that you're risking the zombie apocalypse; which begs the questions of why you are carrying it around on an iPad.

Some very small bits of data might still survive this. The odds of it being useful to anyone are astronomical. Supposing the data was useful to begin with.

If all you are really worried about are things like account information, passwords, etc. Then I wouldn't bother. Those are encrypted to begin with. With lots of time and effort those might be recovered, perhaps in time for your great grandchild's run for the Presidency; if computer technology keeps advancing apace.

 

[Gotmilk0112]

I'm mostly just wanting to protect various personal info like email accounts and contacts. Though after factory reset'ing through iTunes, it looks like it's thoroughly wiped clean; couldn't find any evidence of a previous user!

Eh, all of my email accounts have 2-step auth on them anyways, so I suppose it doesn't matter too much. Even the Cydia login I use is tied to a 2-step Google account, so my JB data is safe too.