[ale] erasing a hard drive

Lightner, Jeff JLightner at water.com
Fri Aug 26 13:37:58 EDT 2011


Of course you don't need a software at all.

Erasing the data in a filesystem then unmounting the filesystem and running:
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda1/scramble bs=1M

- will write random data on the partition (sda1 in the above - you can substitute other partitions/drive letters as necessary)

However, any time I've seen this question come up someone invariably posts that it really isn't necessary for "modern drives".   They never quite say what their definition of "modern" is.

In the past it was required to do something like the above multiple times but it really isn't necessary unless you're doing DOD or CIA work.





-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Pete Hardie
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 10:52 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] erasing a hard drive

Thermite!

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 10:37, Robert <rs at ale.spam.futz.org> wrote:
>>I've drawn a blank.  What is the name of that free software that I can
>>use to erase a hard drive?  It will run multiple overwrites?
>>
>>I've got a number of old drives I need to dispose of and I don't want to
>>bother trying to figure out what's on them.
>>
>
> shred?
>
> --
> Arguing with an Engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud.
> After a while you realize the pig is enjoying it.
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--
Pete Hardie
--------
Better Living Through Bitmaps

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