kalinix wrote: > On Sun, 2010-08-29 at 20:21 +0100, Marko Vojinovic wrote: > > >> So if you want to be on a safe side, fill up the whole disk from /dev/random >> over and over 20 times, and the original data will be completely gone. Even >> for NSA & friends. :-) >> >> Best, :-) >> Marko >> >> >> >> > > Actually, the 'standard' safe side is 25 times. And besides /dev/random, > you have 'shred' command, which can do the same: > > > Correct. However, this does take time. > from shred man: > > > Overwrite the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to make it harder > for even very expensive hardware probing to recover the data. > > > Yep. If the Feds wanted to see if you were pushing Child Porn or running books for a drug cartel, they may take the time to recover it. If you were faking your taxes, maybe not so. If you were giving your drive to charity, they don't have the time/resources. It does depend on who is doing the looking. I've seen divorce lawyers, when going after big money, get the DDR folks involved. However, you are correct, if you use something like shred or Secure Erase, you can state that the drive is 'clean'. Without it, you cannot. hdparam is called by either of these in the Linux environment. A clean drive is a happy drive, for both you and the drive. James McKenzie -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines