How to completely erase an iPhone?

[Barks]

I apologise if this topic is covered regularly.

I wish to sell my iPhone 4 on the Bay and I'm fairly confident that a factory reset will not actually erase all the data on the phone and thus anyone with the right tools could easily recover all my data.

How do I erase it properly using that military grade 7-pass procedure that makes all data completely irrecoverable?

Cheers

 

[uniQ]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18329760

For the record a single pass of 0's is enough. Nobody is going to be interested enough in your data to spend the ridiculous amount of time and effort it would take to recover your mums/girlfriends/best friends telephone number.

 

[Berserker]

Agreed. As a purely digital device, there's no realistic chance of recovering any latent memory like there might be with magnetic media.

Unless you're in Government and there's a statutory requirement for such security, more than one pass does nothing beyond shortening the life of the flash memory (which I'm sure your buyer won't appreciate).

 

[Deleted member 651465]

1. Take the sim out
2. Settings > General > Erase > Erase all settings and media
3. Put the phone back in the box when it's restarted
4. Done

 

[Johnny|lucidcomposure]

This makes me interested in buying your phone now. See what naughty messed up things you've been looking at. lol

Advertise it like that you might get a lot more money for it. ha