Erase iPhone data Video
Erase iPhone data Video Transcript
[ Music ] ^M00:00:02
>> Hey. If you're getting rid of your old, worn out iPhone, you probably don't want all your personal data to still be available there when the next person buys it from you. I'm Tom Merritt from CNET.com with a quick tip on completely erasing your iPhone of all personal data. Now, you may remember our insider's secret about erasing the iPhone where we told you there's no guaranteed way. Thankfully, Apple has fixed that. You have to have Firmware, Version 2.0 on your iPhone, which means you either bought an iPhone 3G, and why are you selling that already? Or you upgraded your old iPhone through iTunes. Now, in addition to reset and restore, you now have an erase option. Here's how to find it. Go to settings. Choose general. Scroll down. And choose reset. Now, hold on. This will overwrite all your data, then restore virginal Firmware. You need to make sure you really want to do this. You do? Then press erase all contents and settings, and push the shiny red button. Since the iPhone is being securely erased by unlinking the data and overwriting with random bits, it's going to take a while. According to Apple, it takes about an hour. This is probably good enough for 99 percent of most users, but remember, good data forensics can uncover some overwritten data. But you're not paranoid. That's it for this quick tip. I'm Tom Merritt for CNET.com. ^M00:01:24 [ Music ]
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