Dale wrote:
I'm not necessarily needing to use shred or dd everything to make sure data can never be recovered, just reset to like new so I can start clean with a fresh new setup.<<snip>>> What is the fastest way
In that scenario I would simply use gdisk (sys-apps/ gptfdisk).When you open the drive (e.g. "gdisk /dev/sda") under the "extra functionality (experts only)" menu there is the option:
z zap (destroy) GPT data structures and exit
Note that the drive does not need to be GPT formatted. Zapping it will
also ask to remove MBR structures too.
This will give you a clean slate. Of course, since the actual data of each partition has not been removed if you then create the exact same partition table with the exact same offsets you will still be able to mount the filesystems. Notably, if the start offset is the same, e.g. "2048" and you try to run mkfs it will warn of existing signature having been found.
LVM signatures will still remain in place and the same would be possible. If that's not a desirable outcome you can use LVM's "vgremove" and "pvremove" first to remove the VG/PV signatures.
None of this really matters much though since the data at these locations would eventually be overwritten. And if you plan to do have exact same layout, at the exact same offsets, then creating a new filesystem or PV/VG/LV will inherently overwrite any existing signatures.
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
