> david walcroft wrote: > > > jludwig wrote: > > > >> On Wednesday 20 April 2005 08:34 pm, david walcroft wrote: > >> > >>> Vinicius wrote: > >>> > >>>> Hello, > >>>> > >>>> How to wipe a HD, please? > >>>> > >>>> Atte., > >>>> Vinicius. > >>> > >>> > 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. If your desire is to remove information from a failed drive, there's always the bulk-tape-eraser-to-the-disk-drive technique. A strong permanent magnet will help too! I've done this on defective drives on which I can't run any commands, but only on drives I know to be defective. I would not do this on a disk I wanted to use again. Erik
