Re: How to wipe a HD?

From: Robert P. J. Day (rpjday_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 04/23/05

  • Next message: Antonio Olivares: "Say no to Software Patents..." 
    Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 14:00:21 -0400 (EDT)
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    On Sat, 23 Apr 2005, Bruno Wolff III wrote:

    > > > If you don't care about deleting all the data, a much easier way
    > > > is:
    > > >
    > > > dd if=/dev/zero/ of=/dev/hda
    > > >
    > > > It will run for awhile (without a progress bar) and then stop.
    > > > Check the man pages if you want to check the progress of the
    > > > wipe. -ben
    > >
    > > I've tried the dd route, and while I didn't do a detailed test to see if
    > > everything was wiped bit-by-bit, I did find that the disk was completely
    > > unusable. I did this while performing some backup testing. When I was
    > > done, although the system was still running, there weren't any disk-based
    > > commands anymore! This likely will not meet official standards for "true"
    > > deletion of data (as shred tries to do) but it will go very far.
    >
    > It will write over all of the addressible blocks on the drive. You
    > won't have access to remapped sectors. You won't get rid of trace
    > magnetization that would allow someone to see what data was stored
    > on the drive in the past. Unless you have very high value
    > information on the drive this should be good enough.

    another solution is to boot from a CD and just rewrite the entire
    drive several times using "dd" -- enough times to wipe that trace
    magnetization. start with

      # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda ...

    now, it's too bad there's no /dev/ones.

      but you could also keep overwriting with /dev/random. after a
    while, i'm pretty sure there won't be much salvageable from the drive.

    rday 

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