1. if you want half-military strength, use the program "wipe".
2. use /dev/zero, not /dev/random - I have done this on 2 drives, it does a marvelous
job of removing files, partitions, everything. You could then go ahead and reinstall a
new partition afterwards, and it would look fresh, clean and ready to go. You could
also try cat instead of dd.
One reason /dev/random may have failed is that the length is random too, not just the
output - i.e. you may have only dd'd a few kb worth of random data onto a very small
portion of your drive. /dev/zero will go on until you run out of drive.
Note that when dd'ing /dev/zero your drive may make horrible sounding clicks. That's
ok :-)
JW
P.S. I will not be held responsible for destruction of your drives in the even that
you /do/ take this advise, and it does ruin your hardware. But like i said, I've got
Linux humming away on 2 drives I've done this to.
At 10:19 PM 10/23/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>I have a number of PC's that are going off lease and will be sent back
>to be turned into dog food. Before they leave I want to wipe the hard
>drives. Although there's nothing on them that requires a
>military-style wipe (e.g. destroy with a hammer), I would like to take
>a pass or two over the drive.
>
>My first thought was to boot up with Tom's boot/root disk and do:
>
>dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda
>
>which would, in my warped view of the world, continue to copy random
>data over the hard drive. Unfortunately, when I issue that command,
>not much happens. I get some data from if but nothing appears to go
>to of.
>
>So, what't the quick-and-dirty drive wiping technique used by those
>who love Linux?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Barry
>
>
>
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