On Tue, 3 Sep 2013, 13:24, Craig Sanders wrote:

} On Tue, Sep 03, 2013 at 12:35:08PM +1000, Tony Crisp wrote:
} > To check to see if a drive has data on it, send the output to standard 
} > out.
} > 
} > dd if=/dev/sda
} 
} this is pretty nearly completely useless, dumping of raw binary data
} to the tty is a) unlikely to be readable by any human and b) likely to
} screw up the tty settings - many control characters move the cursor
} around, change colors and other attributes, put ttys into weird
} graphics-character modes, and even mess up keyboard input/display.
} 
} at least use a hexdumper program to get hex+ascii output, like 'hd' aka
} 'hexdump'. not only will it be actually readable, it will protect the
} tty from raw control and escape codes (actually, even piping dd output
} into less will help with the latter).
} 
} for example:
} 
}    hd /dev/sda | less
} 
} hd is in the bsdmainutils main utils package in debian.
} 
} example output (30 lines is just enough to show readable ascii text from
} grub):
} 
} # hd /dev/sda | head -30
} 00000000  eb 63 90 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.c..............|
} 00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
} *
} 00000030  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 03 02  |................|
} 00000040  ff 00 00 20 01 00 00 00  00 02 fa 90 90 f6 c2 80  |... ............|
} 00000050  75 02 b2 80 ea 59 7c 00  00 31 00 80 01 00 00 00  |u....Y|..1......|
} 00000060  00 00 00 00 ff fa 90 90  f6 c2 80 74 05 f6 c2 70  |...........t...p|
} 00000070  74 02 b2 80 ea 79 7c 00  00 31 c0 8e d8 8e d0 bc  |t....y|..1......|
} 00000080  00 20 fb a0 64 7c 3c ff  74 02 88 c2 52 be 80 7d  |. ..d|<.t...R..}|
} 00000090  e8 17 01 be 05 7c b4 41  bb aa 55 cd 13 5a 52 72  |.....|.A..U..ZRr|
} 000000a0  3d 81 fb 55 aa 75 37 83  e1 01 74 32 31 c0 89 44  |=..U.u7...t21..D|
} 000000b0  04 40 88 44 ff 89 44 02  c7 04 10 00 66 8b 1e 5c  |[email protected]..\|
} 000000c0  7c 66 89 5c 08 66 8b 1e  60 7c 66 89 5c 0c c7 44  ||f.\.f..`|f.\..D|
} 000000d0  06 00 70 b4 42 cd 13 72  05 bb 00 70 eb 76 b4 08  |..p.B..r...p.v..|
} 000000e0  cd 13 73 0d f6 c2 80 0f  84 d8 00 be 8b 7d e9 82  |..s..........}..|
} 000000f0  00 66 0f b6 c6 88 64 ff  40 66 89 44 04 0f b6 d1  |[email protected]....|
} 00000100  c1 e2 02 88 e8 88 f4 40  89 44 08 0f b6 c2 c0 e8  |[email protected]......|
} 00000110  02 66 89 04 66 a1 60 7c  66 09 c0 75 4e 66 a1 5c  |.f..f.`|f..uNf.\|
} 00000120  7c 66 31 d2 66 f7 34 88  d1 31 d2 66 f7 74 04 3b  ||f1.f.4..1.f.t.;|
} 00000130  44 08 7d 37 fe c1 88 c5  30 c0 c1 e8 02 08 c1 88  |D.}7....0.......|
} 00000140  d0 5a 88 c6 bb 00 70 8e  c3 31 db b8 01 02 cd 13  |.Z....p..1......|
} 00000150  72 1e 8c c3 60 1e b9 00  01 8e db 31 f6 bf 00 80  |r...`......1....|
} 00000160  8e c6 fc f3 a5 1f 61 ff  26 5a 7c be 86 7d eb 03  |......a.&Z|..}..|
} 00000170  be 95 7d e8 34 00 be 9a  7d e8 2e 00 cd 18 eb fe  |..}.4...}.......|
} 00000180  47 52 55 42 20 00 47 65  6f 6d 00 48 61 72 64 20  |GRUB .Geom.Hard |
} 00000190  44 69 73 6b 00 52 65 61  64 00 20 45 72 72 6f 72  |Disk.Read. Error|
} 000001a0  0d 0a 00 bb 01 00 b4 0e  cd 10 ac 3c 00 75 f4 c3  |...........<.u..|
} 000001b0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ff  |................|
} 000001c0  ff ff ee ff ff ff 01 00  00 00 af 6d 70 74 00 00  |...........mpt..|
} 000001d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
} 
} 
} BTW, note how it consolidated consecutive lines of all zeroes (00000010
} to 00000020) - in this case, only two consecutive lines but it does the
} same thing no matter how many there are. so if the disk is completely
} zeroed, you'll only see two or three lines of output total.
} 
} 
} craig

hmmm, I like it, works on partitions too =]

# hexdump -C /dev/sda2 | head

00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000400  01 00 00 00 6d 42 0f 00  00 00 00 00 06 7f 25 6d  |....mB........%m|
00000410  64 c1 43 f9 92 06 58 bc  ee 00 b6 1d 00 00 00 00  |dÁCù..X¼î.¶.....|
00000420  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000ff0  00 00 00 00 00 00 53 57  41 50 53 50 41 43 45 32  |......SWAPSPACE2|
00001000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00008000  40 7f d9 fc ba 7f 00 00  16 c3 ef f6 ba 7f 00 00  |@.Ùüº....Ãïöº...|

T.
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