Brief introduction to Apple machines:

Apple Inc. produce a large variety of machines including laptops, desktops, workstations, tablets, servers, mobile phones, watches, etc. These machines have different processors (laptops/desktops/workstations run PowerPC or Intel x86 processors, mobile phones and tablets run ARM-based processors, etc.) i.e. they require different erasure solutions:

If we focus on the Intel-based machines, they are often identified by family (MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, …) and “model”:

Generalities on booting Apple machines:

Blancco Drive Eraser can be booted on Mac laptops and workstations, although in some cases the success of the procedure depends on the Mac model and involves some additional steps:

Handling some specific Apple models:

Some Apple machines (example models: MacBookPro11,1 with OWC Aura SSD, MacBookAir6,1 , MacBook9,1 , MacBook8,1 , MacBookAir7,1) contain drives (mainly ATA SSDs and NVMes) that do not implement any firmware-based erasure command required to perform a “purge-level” erasure (e.g. required if you use the erasure standards “NIST 800-88 Purge” or “Blancco SSD Erasure”). The problem lies in the drive firmware level where the required commands are missing:

Since 6.1.2, Blancco Drive Eraser has improved its support for newer Apple machines. Nevertheless, some models require the software to be booted with special booting parameters 1:

1: Adding/removing the default booting parameters can be automated if the software image is configured with Blancco Drive Eraser Configuration Tool 2.2 or higher. This can also be carried out manually, as explained below:

  1. Boot the machine, select the booting option (e.g. "FLR during startup"), press "e" to edit the option.
  2. With arrow keys, move the cursor down to the line starting with: "linux /arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz img_dev=..."
  3. Move the cursor after “$isofile” and add/remove the boot parameter(s) without quotes.
  4. Press Ctrl + "X" or F10 to continue booting.