Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Neil Bothwick wrote: On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:31:31 -0500, Willie Wong wrote: If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. DS = Damn Small, not Dual Screen. I don't know if anyone has installed Gentoo on the DS you were thinking of ;-) The anal-retentive in me feels compelled to point out: http://www.dslinux.org/ http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ DSLinux = Linux on the Nintendo DS DSL = Damn Small Linux :-P John Moe
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:04:30 +1000, John H. Moe wrote: DS = Damn Small, not Dual Screen. I don't know if anyone has installed Gentoo on the DS you were thinking of ;-) The anal-retentive in me feels compelled to point out: http://www.dslinux.org/ http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ DSLinux = Linux on the Nintendo DS DSL = Damn Small Linux I knew about the latter of course, having already mentioned it. I'd also said I didn't know about the former, so a pointer to is is more helpful that anal ;-) -- Neil Bothwick Adolescence, n.: The stage between puberty and adultery. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. DSLinux couldn't find my HD because it needs the sata boot parameter explicitly passed. However, after doing that it crashes while loading the sata module. This is discussed online with no solution presented. If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. Something like DBAN or SysResCD will have a better chance of supporting a wider array of hardware. The problem with those two is I need something that can install to the HD after wiping it. I also need something that can install on a 512MB USB key since my 8GB key does not seem to be bootable. DSLinux was a flop as described above, so I'm downloading Puppy Linux now. It's about 100MB, and it has the Puppy Universal Installer which should install to my HD. Hopefully it fares better with my SATA hardware than DSLinux did. Also, in case it helps anyone in the future, unetbootin has a very annoying habit of failing to download the selected ISO, returning no error, and in fact reporting installation success. The symptom of this is a boot menu with only Default available, which goes nowhere. The solution is to download the ISO manually and point unetbootin to it. I'll report back with Puppy Linux results. Puppy Linux has wiped the HD and installed to /dev/sda3, but I can't get it to install GRUB to /dev/sda1. I get: I couldn't mount '/dev/sda1' read-write! Working on it OK, finally got this working. To fix the above problem I just needed to create the filesystem. I had another problem where the kernel file was not being installed, but I just needed to mount the USB key and point the installer to the files on /mnt/sdb1 to fix that. I'm going to keep Puppy Linux on this USB key and use it to quickly wipe and install when I sell a laptop. Here is a summary for those looking to boot from, wipe from, and install from a USB key: 1. Use unetbootin to install your distro of choice on the USB key. Puppy Linux works well if your USB key is low-capacity since it only requires around 100MB, and it includes a hard disk installation routine. If the USB key fails to boot, consider these 4 possibilities: 1a. If the unetbootin installation procedure executes really quickly, it may not be downloading the ISO. In this case, it does not produce an error and in fact reports installation success. Download the ISO manually and point unetbootin to it. 1b. Assuming /dev/sdb is your USB key: 'cfdisk /dev/sdb' and select type LBA FAT32 'mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n USBKEY /dev/sdb1' 'dd if=/usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb' 'sync' 1c. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from a USB key before anything else. 1d. Some USB keys are not bootable. 2. Once booted to the USB key, use 'fdisk -l' to be sure the hard disk has been detected and assigned to /dev/sda. Use the following to wipe the hard disk: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=4096 3. Use 'fdisk /dev/sda' to partition your hard disk, and mke2fs to create the filesystems. Puppy Linux also provides gparted for this. 4. Use the booted distro's installation routine to install to the hard disk. 4a. If installing Puppy Linux, be sure to mount your USB key and point the installation routine to the files there when prompted. Done, and thanks for everyone's help. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 12:06:53PM -0800, Penguin Lover Grant squawked: The problem with that is there doesn't seem to be a Gentoo ISO which will fit on a 512MB USB key. I tried to make it work once and failed. The other thing is going through the entire Gentoo installation just to sell the laptop. I'm not sure if the graphical installer is working these days. Both of the options I mentioned are smaller than that. SysResCD is 239 MiB. W -- Did you hear about the restaurant NASA is starting on the Moon? Great food, no atmosphere! Sortir en Pantoufles: up 1110 days, 22:01
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
The problem with that is there doesn't seem to be a Gentoo ISO which will fit on a 512MB USB key. I tried to make it work once and failed. The other thing is going through the entire Gentoo installation just to sell the laptop. I'm not sure if the graphical installer is working these days. Both of the options I mentioned are smaller than that. SysResCD is 239 MiB. But do they have HD installation routines? I needed to boot, wipe, and install. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 03:41:31PM +, Penguin Lover Neil Bothwick squawked: http://www.dslinux.org/ http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ DSLinux = Linux on the Nintendo DS DSL = Damn Small Linux I knew about the latter of course, having already mentioned it. I'd also said I didn't know about the former, so a pointer to is is more helpful that anal ;-) Yeah, the former was what I was thinking of... hence my comment about predictable hardware. I've always assumed Damn Small Linux was for embedded devices, but apparently I am way off base now that I've looked at their website. Cheers, W -- Marten: There. Is. No. God. Pintsize: If there is, He or She must think vomit and testicle injuries are hilarious. Sortir en Pantoufles: up 1110 days, 22:04
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Is there a quick way to install a bootloader manually, so I can see if that works? I tried to adapt this but couldn't come up with a procedure I though would be correct: Don't know about the distro you were trying to install, but when I need a bootable USB disk with utils, I usually go with System Rescue CD http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_How_to_install_SystemRescueCd_on_an_USB-stick Great success! Thank you for that link. Here's what I needed to do: 'cfdisk /dev/sdb' and select type LBA FAT32 'mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n DSLinux /dev/sdb1' 'dd if=/usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb' 'sync' Maybe that dd would have been sufficient, I'm not sure. I was using ext3 before. New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 09:01:38AM -0800, Penguin Lover Grant squawked: New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. Something like DBAN or SysResCD will have a better chance of supporting a wider array of hardware. Cheers, W -- The problem is that the LHC has caused the production of strange moron particles, which seem to bump into normal people and turn them into more strange morons. The collective outgassing of stupidity causes a supernova brain implosion. ~David Gerard (12369) /. cid:25200015 Sortir en Pantoufles: up 1109 days, 17:17
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Willie Wong wrote: On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 09:01:38AM -0800, Penguin Lover Grant squawked: New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. Something like DBAN or SysResCD will have a better chance of supporting a wider array of hardware. Cheers, W I'm not sure if he is wanting to just use this to wipe the drive and then be done with it or what but couldn't he just put the Gentoo CD image on the stick and boot that up? Would that work? It has the dd command I think and would most likely recognize his hardware as well. Just thinking. I been into a lot lately and only vaguely recall the purpose of this. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. DSLinux couldn't find my HD because it needs the sata boot parameter explicitly passed. However, after doing that it crashes while loading the sata module. This is discussed online with no solution presented. If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. Something like DBAN or SysResCD will have a better chance of supporting a wider array of hardware. The problem with those two is I need something that can install to the HD after wiping it. I also need something that can install on a 512MB USB key since my 8GB key does not seem to be bootable. DSLinux was a flop as described above, so I'm downloading Puppy Linux now. It's about 100MB, and it has the Puppy Universal Installer which should install to my HD. Hopefully it fares better with my SATA hardware than DSLinux did. Also, in case it helps anyone in the future, unetbootin has a very annoying habit of failing to download the selected ISO, returning no error, and in fact reporting installation success. The symptom of this is a boot menu with only Default available, which goes nowhere. The solution is to download the ISO manually and point unetbootin to it. I'll report back with Puppy Linux results. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. Something like DBAN or SysResCD will have a better chance of supporting a wider array of hardware. Cheers, W I'm not sure if he is wanting to just use this to wipe the drive and then be done with it or what but couldn't he just put the Gentoo CD image on the stick and boot that up? Would that work? It has the dd command I think and would most likely recognize his hardware as well. The problem with that is there doesn't seem to be a Gentoo ISO which will fit on a 512MB USB key. I tried to make it work once and failed. The other thing is going through the entire Gentoo installation just to sell the laptop. I'm not sure if the graphical installer is working these days. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:31:31 -0500, Willie Wong wrote: If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. DS = Damn Small, not Dual Screen. I don't know if anyone has installed Gentoo on the DS you were thinking of ;-) -- Neil Bothwick He who laughs last thinks slowest! signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Grant wrote: New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. Something like DBAN or SysResCD will have a better chance of supporting a wider array of hardware. Cheers, W I'm not sure if he is wanting to just use this to wipe the drive and then be done with it or what but couldn't he just put the Gentoo CD image on the stick and boot that up? Would that work? It has the dd command I think and would most likely recognize his hardware as well. The problem with that is there doesn't seem to be a Gentoo ISO which will fit on a 512MB USB key. I tried to make it work once and failed. The other thing is going through the entire Gentoo installation just to sell the laptop. I'm not sure if the graphical installer is working these days. - Grant Oh, I was thinking about the 8Gb or whatever size it was. Isn't there a old CD that didn't have a full blown setup that was sort of small? I found this: ftp://mirror.datapipe.net/gentoo/releases/x86/2008.0/installcd It's a small one but a bit outdated. Of course, you don't want to install from that I guess so it may not help any. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
New problem: Booted into DSLinux, my HD does not appear so I can't wipe it. blkid and fdisk -l only show the USB stick assigned to /dev/sda which is how I accidentally wiped it in the first place. I'll try another distro on the USB stick. DSLinux couldn't find my HD because it needs the sata boot parameter explicitly passed. However, after doing that it crashes while loading the sata module. This is discussed online with no solution presented. If DSLinux is what I think it is, it may have been (on hindsight) rather obvious that it may not support the block device your system HD is on or the filesystem used. The DS, afterall, has fairly predictable hardware. Something like DBAN or SysResCD will have a better chance of supporting a wider array of hardware. The problem with those two is I need something that can install to the HD after wiping it. I also need something that can install on a 512MB USB key since my 8GB key does not seem to be bootable. DSLinux was a flop as described above, so I'm downloading Puppy Linux now. It's about 100MB, and it has the Puppy Universal Installer which should install to my HD. Hopefully it fares better with my SATA hardware than DSLinux did. Also, in case it helps anyone in the future, unetbootin has a very annoying habit of failing to download the selected ISO, returning no error, and in fact reporting installation success. The symptom of this is a boot menu with only Default available, which goes nowhere. The solution is to download the ISO manually and point unetbootin to it. I'll report back with Puppy Linux results. Puppy Linux has wiped the HD and installed to /dev/sda3, but I can't get it to install GRUB to /dev/sda1. I get: I couldn't mount '/dev/sda1' read-write! Working on it - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Tuesday 22 December 2009 04:59:02 Grant wrote: I'll report back with Puppy Linux results. Puppy Linux has wiped the HD and installed to /dev/sda3, but I can't get it to install GRUB to /dev/sda1. I get: I couldn't mount '/dev/sda1' read-write! Working on it You cannot install grub to /dev/sda1 and expect it to work - that is a partition, not a device. Grub goes into the MBR of the device, and the various stage 1.5 and stage 2 support files are put into /boot/grub/. The install app can find those dirs just fine as it is a Linux app running on a full mounted Linux system. But, it has no clue which MBR you want to be used: grub-install /dev/sda If you need grub installed on some other device (not the current machine's own boot drive), then mount that drive's /boot somewhere and do something like this grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/device -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Does the USB stick still boot? It looks like you wiped the wrong device. Bingo, right as usual! Apparently I wiped the USB stick. I ran fdisk and mk2fs -j again (do I want journaling?) and reinstalled Damn Small Linux on the stick. For some reason the laptop tell me missing operating system when I try to boot from the stick now. I need to test it on other systems. Grant, Take a deep breath and hhink about what you're doing for a second. Did you just copy files to the stick and expect that it would boot? It' still needs a bootloader (LILO, GRUB, SYSLINUX, or whatever) in order to load the OS on the stick. Your dd wiped out *everything* unetbootin does go through a step called Installing Bootloader. I also tried installing Super Grub Disk and Smart Boot Manager via unetbootin, both of which are specifically described as bootloaders. Still nothing. Could that dd have wiped out something else on the USB stick that is important for boot? Is there a quick way to install a bootloader manually, so I can see if that works? I tried to adapt this but couldn't come up with a procedure I though would be correct: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1chap=10#doc_chap2 - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 01:56:39PM -0800, Penguin Lover Grant squawked: Is there a quick way to install a bootloader manually, so I can see if that works? I tried to adapt this but couldn't come up with a procedure I though would be correct: Don't know about the distro you were trying to install, but when I need a bootable USB disk with utils, I usually go with System Rescue CD http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_How_to_install_SystemRescueCd_on_an_USB-stick Maybe you forgot to mark the filesystem bootable? Cheers, W -- The particle physicists use order parameter fields, too. Their order parameter fields also hide lots of details about what their quarks and gluons are composed of. The main difference is that they don't know of what their fields are composed. It ought to be reassuring to them that we don't always find our greater knowledge very helpful. ~James P. Sethna Order Parameters, Broken Symmetry, and Topology Sortir en Pantoufles: up 1108 days, 22:19
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thursday 17 December 2009 12:47:23 Albert Hopkins wrote: On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 11:42 +, Mick wrote: shred ... shreds files. Therefore you may need to point it to the files in question for it to work. No. This is horribly wrong. Please don't tell people this. It's not entirely wrong. Shred will wipe a file that you ask it to, or a device that you point it to. The problem with just shredding files is thus: * I have a file with very sensitive data, it occupies blocks x-y on my hard drive. * I later delete that file, in the os it just get's unlinked(). If there are no more links to that file then it's considered deleted, however the data is still there. * Out of sheer luck blocks x-y are never reallocated. The data remains on that block. * I go to shred every file on the filesystem. Blocks x-y never get shredded because they are not linked to a file. * I give my laptop to someone. They run a tool as simple as formost(1) on the drive. Bingo! Sensitive data found. Of course! Sorry for giving at least partially incorrect advice. :-( Your comment about shredding devices... how long have you been using *nix man? Long enough to have forgotten most I've learned about it. ha, ha! shred -v -n 25 -z /dev/sda will do the desired overwritting 25 times. dd will do the same, reruns will have to be done manually or via a script. DBAN seems to be the best tool available to do this job and it will from now be part of my arsenal of useful tools. Some useful info here: http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/html/os/misc/shred.html -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:58:06 -0800, Grant wrote: I checked on it after a few hours and it said No space left on device and the process had exited. I rebooted the system without the key inserted and unfortunately it came back up to the normal HD so nothing has been wiped. Any idea what I did wrong? Does the USB stick still boot? It looks like you wiped the wrong device. Incidentally, if you want to use dd, adding bs=4096 speeds it up quite significantly. -- Neil Bothwick Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional!! signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On 12/18/2009 8:58 PM, Grant wrote: I used unetbootin to install Damn Small Linux on the 512MB bootable USB key, and I'm booted into it. /dev/sda is my HD, and I'm running: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda The USB LED is blinking rapidly, but the HD LED is showing no activity. Is there any way to tell if the HD is being wiped? The hdd IS being wiped, if you have the right device (which you do, don't worry!). However, I would recommend running with if=/dev/urandom as that will overwrite it with random bits instead of just zero. However, since it's already being done with zeros and a hard drive would usually be sold with all bits set to zero, I think what you are doing will be fine. I checked on it after a few hours and it said No space left on device and the process had exited. I rebooted the system without the key inserted and unfortunately it came back up to the normal HD so nothing has been wiped. Any idea what I did wrong? First of all, make sure that /dev/sda really is your hdd. You can do this in different ways, e.x. mounting the partition with your system on it and seeing if the files are there). Keep in mind that I believe the latest version of DSL still uses /dev/hda for IDE disks, so try that if it turns out that /dev/sdx isn't your disk. Marcus
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
I checked on it after a few hours and it said No space left on device and the process had exited. I rebooted the system without the key inserted and unfortunately it came back up to the normal HD so nothing has been wiped. Any idea what I did wrong? Does the USB stick still boot? It looks like you wiped the wrong device. Bingo, right as usual! Apparently I wiped the USB stick. I ran fdisk and mk2fs -j again (do I want journaling?) and reinstalled Damn Small Linux on the stick. For some reason the laptop tell me missing operating system when I try to boot from the stick now. I need to test it on other systems. Incidentally, if you want to use dd, adding bs=4096 speeds it up quite significantly. Thanks, will do: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=4096 - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Sat, 2009-12-19 at 08:50 -0800, Grant wrote: Does the USB stick still boot? It looks like you wiped the wrong device. Bingo, right as usual! Apparently I wiped the USB stick. I ran fdisk and mk2fs -j again (do I want journaling?) and reinstalled Damn Small Linux on the stick. For some reason the laptop tell me missing operating system when I try to boot from the stick now. I need to test it on other systems. Grant, Take a deep breath and hhink about what you're doing for a second. Did you just copy files to the stick and expect that it would boot? It' still needs a bootloader (LILO, GRUB, SYSLINUX, or whatever) in order to load the OS on the stick. Your dd wiped out *everything* When you finally do get the stick to boot, run fdisk -l or blkid or whatever and make sure your target disk is actually what you think it is. Anyway might save you some time in the long run... maybe not.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Does the USB stick still boot? It looks like you wiped the wrong device. Bingo, right as usual! Apparently I wiped the USB stick. I ran fdisk and mk2fs -j again (do I want journaling?) and reinstalled Damn Small Linux on the stick. For some reason the laptop tell me missing operating system when I try to boot from the stick now. I need to test it on other systems. Grant, Take a deep breath and hhink about what you're doing for a second. Did you just copy files to the stick and expect that it would boot? It' still needs a bootloader (LILO, GRUB, SYSLINUX, or whatever) in order to load the OS on the stick. Your dd wiped out *everything* I think unetbootin installs a bootloader. It worked when I did the above yesterday. - Grant When you finally do get the stick to boot, run fdisk -l or blkid or whatever and make sure your target disk is actually what you think it is. Anyway might save you some time in the long run... maybe not.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Grant wrote: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant Wouldn't Knoppix work? I'm pretty sure it has the dd command and I know you can install Gentoo from it. Since there are some versions of Knoppis that would fit on a CD, I would see if one of those would fit on the 512Mb thingy. Damn Small Linux may be a option too. Not sure about installing from it tho. I guess the network and stuff would work from it. Just some thoughts. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Grant emailgr...@gmail.com wrote: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant I've dealt with many systems that flatly refuse to boot from *some* usb keys but not from others.. and some even vary based on what's being booted into on those usb keys. -- Poison [BLX] Joshua M. Murphy
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant Wouldn't Knoppix work? I'm pretty sure it has the dd command and I know you can install Gentoo from it. Since there are some versions of Knoppis that would fit on a CD, I would see if one of those would fit on the 512Mb thingy. I really don't want to go through the entire Gentoo installation just to ship this thing off. I'm looking for something along the lines of click, click click So you think there could be a non-software (hardware? firmware?) difference between the two USB keys that allows one to be booted from and not the other? - Grant Damn Small Linux may be a option too. Not sure about installing from it tho. I guess the network and stuff would work from it. Just some thoughts. Dale
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 09:08 -0800, Grant wrote: After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. They should appear the same.. I'm guessing this is a hardware/BIOS issue. I have different sized USB sticks and drives they boot fine. Maybe your BIOS has a 2G boot partition limitation (or whatever the size is)? You may need to partition your 8G stick LOL.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 12:20 -0600, Dale wrote: Wouldn't Knoppix work? I'm pretty sure it has the dd command and I know you can install Gentoo from it. Since there are some versions of Knoppis that would fit on a CD, I would see if one of those would fit on the 512Mb thingy. Damn Small Linux may be a option too. Not sure about installing from it tho. I guess the network and stuff would work from it. Just some thoughts. Dale I recommend RipLinux. It's easy to install on a stick and you don't even need to reformat/remove what's already on it. And it fits snug in a 100MB directory. It also makes for a great rescue partition on your HDD.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant I've dealt with many systems that flatly refuse to boot from *some* usb keys but not from others.. and some even vary based on what's being booted into on those usb keys. I used unetbootin to install Damn Small Linux on the 512MB bootable USB key, and I'm booted into it. /dev/sda is my HD, and I'm running: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda The USB LED is blinking rapidly, but the HD LED is showing no activity. Is there any way to tell if the HD is being wiped? - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Grant wrote: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant I've dealt with many systems that flatly refuse to boot from *some* usb keys but not from others.. and some even vary based on what's being booted into on those usb keys. I used unetbootin to install Damn Small Linux on the 512MB bootable USB key, and I'm booted into it. /dev/sda is my HD, and I'm running: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda The USB LED is blinking rapidly, but the HD LED is showing no activity. Is there any way to tell if the HD is being wiped? - Grant Someone may correct me but I don't think it will blink since it is not mounted. On the other hand, you sure you are erasing the hard drive and not the USB thingy? I ask cause it sounds like something I would do. I recently erased /home instead of the /backup/home. lol Small typo there. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 15:05 -0800, Grant wrote: I used unetbootin to install Damn Small Linux on the 512MB bootable USB key, and I'm booted into it. /dev/sda is my HD, and I'm running: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda The USB LED is blinking rapidly, but the HD LED is showing no activity. Is there any way to tell if the HD is being wiped? I hate to say this, but are you wiping the wrong device?! There should be pretty much 0 activity on the USD stick (/dev/zero is kernel) and plenty of writes to the HDD.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On 12/18/2009 6:05 PM, Grant wrote: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant I've dealt with many systems that flatly refuse to boot from *some* usb keys but not from others.. and some even vary based on what's being booted into on those usb keys. I used unetbootin to install Damn Small Linux on the 512MB bootable USB key, and I'm booted into it. /dev/sda is my HD, and I'm running: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda The USB LED is blinking rapidly, but the HD LED is showing no activity. Is there any way to tell if the HD is being wiped? The hdd IS being wiped, if you have the right device (which you do, don't worry!). However, I would recommend running with if=/dev/urandom as that will overwrite it with random bits instead of just zero. However, since it's already being done with zeros and a hard drive would usually be sold with all bits set to zero, I think what you are doing will be fine. Marcus
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) After reading over all the info here, I think I'm going to go with dd since the data isn't too sensitive. I created a 9.1_Live_x64 USB key with unetbootin, but the laptop won't boot to it. I have another 512MB USB key that it boots to just fine. Could my 8GB key be non-bootable? The laptop's CD drive isn't working so I need another way to install an easy copy of Linux after I dd. - Grant I've dealt with many systems that flatly refuse to boot from *some* usb keys but not from others.. and some even vary based on what's being booted into on those usb keys. I used unetbootin to install Damn Small Linux on the 512MB bootable USB key, and I'm booted into it. /dev/sda is my HD, and I'm running: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda The USB LED is blinking rapidly, but the HD LED is showing no activity. Is there any way to tell if the HD is being wiped? The hdd IS being wiped, if you have the right device (which you do, don't worry!). However, I would recommend running with if=/dev/urandom as that will overwrite it with random bits instead of just zero. However, since it's already being done with zeros and a hard drive would usually be sold with all bits set to zero, I think what you are doing will be fine. Marcus I checked on it after a few hours and it said No space left on device and the process had exited. I rebooted the system without the key inserted and unfortunately it came back up to the normal HD so nothing has been wiped. Any idea what I did wrong? - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thursday 17 December 2009 02:37:54 Robert Bridge wrote: dd is pretty thorough... afterall, it writes to every single block on the disk. And the resulting effect from doing that once is: Trivially easy to recover the data that was there just before you did the dd Why? Data on-disk is not a binary cell like ram. It is a magnetic pattern and the pattern from the previous write is still there IIF you know how to find it -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
dd is pretty thorough... afterall, it writes to every single block on the disk. And the resulting effect from doing that once is: Trivially easy to recover the data that was there just before you did the dd Why? Data on-disk is not a binary cell like ram. It is a magnetic pattern and the pattern from the previous write is still there IIF you know how to find it Agreed, using all zeros will just change the magnitude of the field, which will make it more difficult to read, but the underlying data will largely remain. You should use random data so with dd you could use if=/dev/random but that would be horribly slow so maybe if=/dev/urandom. But why bother when there's a tool like shred. I boot a Knoppix cd then use it on the raw device as i cant see any point in doing each partition separately.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Wednesday 16 December 2009 23:24:51 Marcus Wanner wrote: On 12/16/2009 2:24 PM, Mick wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them as required. If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite partition tables, but I would probably not bother. Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button, but I haven't looked into it in any detail. HTH. What's wrong with dd if=/dev/zero of/dev/sdxx? Nothing, I also mentioned dd. Both are equally effective (or less so on journaled fs). shred has the -n option for multiple overwrites. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thursday 17 December 2009 05:13:32 Joshua Murphy wrote: chicane ~ # shred test/ shred: test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory chicane ~ # shred -v -n 25 -z -u ~/test/ shred: /root/test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory shred ... shreds files. Therefore you may need to point it to the files in question for it to work. I suspect that if you point it to a device alone it just shreds the file representing the device on the Linux fs in question. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 11:42 +, Mick wrote: shred ... shreds files. Therefore you may need to point it to the files in question for it to work. I suspect that if you point it to a device alone it just shreds the file representing the device on the Linux fs in question. No. This is horribly wrong. Please don't tell people this. The problem with just shredding files is thus: * I have a file with very sensitive data, it occupies blocks x-y on my hard drive. * I later delete that file, in the os it just get's unlinked(). If there are no more links to that file then it's considered deleted, however the data is still there. * Out of sheer luck blocks x-y are never reallocated. The data remains on that block. * I go to shred every file on the filesystem. Blocks x-y never get shredded because they are not linked to a file. * I give my laptop to someone. They run a tool as simple as formost(1) on the drive. Bingo! Sensitive data found. Your comment about shredding devices... how long have you been using *nix man? When you cat /dev/sda what do you get? When you cat /dev/sda what do you get (please, don't try that)? When you run shred on a block device representing your hard drive.. it's just a file. Everything is a file (remember hearing that)? Shredding a drive will not shred the device node. Device nodes are empty anyway: $ ls -sH /dev/sda 0 /dev/sda So if you shred a drive and it takes days instead of microseconds you can rest assured that it's actually shredding the drive ;)
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On 12/17/2009 6:42 AM, Mick wrote: On Thursday 17 December 2009 05:13:32 Joshua Murphy wrote: chicane ~ # shred test/ shred: test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory chicane ~ # shred -v -n 25 -z -u ~/test/ shred: /root/test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory shred ... shreds files. Therefore you may need to point it to the files in question for it to work. I suspect that if you point it to a device alone it just shreds the file representing the device on the Linux fs in question. That would be a bit inconvenient...I still vote for dd, overwriting the thing 26 times sounds like WAY overkill for a hdd... Marcus
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:40:40 -0500, Marcus Wanner wrote: That would be a bit inconvenient...I still vote for dd, overwriting the thing 26 times sounds like WAY overkill for a hdd... Doesn't that depend on the contents of the disk? I don't see what's wrong with booting a DBAN disk and letting it get on with the job overnight. -- Neil Bothwick That's not a bug, it's a Free Enhanced Feature! signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Alan McKinnon writes: On Thursday 17 December 2009 02:37:54 Robert Bridge wrote: dd is pretty thorough... afterall, it writes to every single block on the disk. And the resulting effect from doing that once is: Trivially easy to recover the data that was there just before you did the dd Why? Data on-disk is not a binary cell like ram. It is a magnetic pattern and the pattern from the previous write is still there IIF you know how to find it I disagree here. In theory it may be possible, but trivially? Seems no one ever did it yet. From http://www.h-online.com/newsticker/news/item/Secure-deletion-a- single-overwrite-will-do-it-739699.html : They concluded that, after a single overwrite of the data on a drive, whether it be an old 1-gigabyte disk or a current model (at the time of the study), the likelihood of still being able to reconstruct anything is practically zero. Well, OK, not quite: a single bit whose precise location is known can in fact be correctly reconstructed with 56 per cent probability (in one of the quoted examples). To recover a byte, however, correct head positioning would have to be precisely repeated eight times, and the probability of that is only 0.97 per cent. Recovering anything beyond a single byte is even less likely. Wonko
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On 17/12/09 15:12, Alex Schuster wrote: Well, OK, not quite: a single bit whose precise location is known can in fact be correctly reconstructed with 56 per cent probability (in one of the quoted examples) So a thing with a 50:50 change of being in a given state, can be identified, a little over half the time? That's a surprise ;) Now to go read TFA signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com wrote: On Thursday 17 December 2009 02:37:54 Robert Bridge wrote: dd is pretty thorough... afterall, it writes to every single block on the disk. And the resulting effect from doing that once is: Trivially easy to recover the data that was there just before you did the dd 1) It's not trivial. Yes, a forensic lab can probably get enough to convict, but that is NOT trivial... (And I have been talking to data retrieval experts about similar stuff in the last week!) 2) The OP has admitted it's not that sensitive. 3) dd DOES write to every sector of the disk. It does what it does pretty thoroughly. The major weakness of dd (and any other OS based tool) is the potential for drives doing sector remapping. The only absolutely guaranteed way to eliminate this is a furnace.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Joshua Murphy writes: A) To fill the drive with zeros: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/drive Should be enough for practical purposes. B) And, to make it at least questionable whether you wiped it or merely had it encrypted: dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/drive Similar method, but faster: badblocks -t random -w /dev/drive You can interrupt this after the first pass when the reading comparing part starts. Wonko
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thursday 17 December 2009 16:26:20 Neil Bothwick wrote: On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:40:40 -0500, Marcus Wanner wrote: That would be a bit inconvenient...I still vote for dd, overwriting the thing 26 times sounds like WAY overkill for a hdd... Doesn't that depend on the contents of the disk? I don't see what's wrong with booting a DBAN disk and letting it get on with the job overnight. Let's look at the obvious solution then: remove the hard drive containing sensitive data, replace it with a new one, sell laptop. Ka-Ching! Problem solved. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On 17 Dec 2009, at 13:40, Marcus Wanner wrote: On 12/17/2009 6:42 AM, Mick wrote: On Thursday 17 December 2009 05:13:32 Joshua Murphy wrote: chicane ~ # shred test/ shred: test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory chicane ~ # shred -v -n 25 -z -u ~/test/ shred: /root/test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory shred ... shreds files. Therefore you may need to point it to the files in question for it to work. I suspect that if you point it to a device alone it just shreds the file representing the device on the Linux fs in question. That would be a bit inconvenient...I still vote for dd, overwriting the thing 26 times sounds like WAY overkill for a hdd... The US military specification is to overwrite randomly 3 times: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_erasure I think the `shred` on the current System Rescue CD defaults to this. The advice to overwrite 26-35 times is, I think, based on Peter Gutmann's 1996 advice, which is now quite dated and is widely considered no longer relevant. Fair play to Gutmann: there aren't many studies on secure data removal made publicly available, so it was the best knowledge we had at the time. It may be accurate to the kind of drives available then, but not to those available now. Why not use dd? Grant says that his data isn't too sensitive, so it doesn't really matter. But it's no more difficult to run shred than it is to run `dd` - it's about the same amount of typing. You might as well do things properly (also known as following best practices), even if you don't think you need to. 3 writes really doesn't take that long. Stroller.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:49:31 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: Let's look at the obvious solution then: remove the hard drive containing sensitive data, replace it with a new one, sell laptop. Ka-Ching! Problem solved. Unfortunately, the hard drive seller gets more Ka-Ching and the OP gets less. It's always a trade off. -- Neil Bothwick Committee (noun): A group of people spending hours taking minutes signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
From: Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:49:31 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: Let's look at the obvious solution then: remove the hard drive containing sensitive data, replace it with a new one, sell laptop. Ka-Ching! Problem solved. Unfortunately, the hard drive seller gets more Ka-Ching and the OP gets less. It's always a trade off. Personally, I'd just go ahead and do the DBAN route as already mentioned. It's worth it - and easy enough to do. (I've done it for one of my work laptops that I purchased from work a couple years ago.) On the other hand, if you really don't want to do that - keep your hard drive, and sell without the hard drive. The buyer can get another one for it themselves. Ben
[gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:49:07 -0800, Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. Darik's Boot and Nuke (http://www.dban.org) will wipe it, Ubuntu can be installed quickly from a USB stick. -- Neil Bothwick This message has been cruelly tested on sweet little furry animals. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them as required. If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite partition tables, but I would probably not bother. Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button, but I haven't looked into it in any detail. HTH. -- Regards, Mick signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or what ever) On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:49 PM, Grant emailgr...@gmail.com wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Darik's Boot and Nuke is a good projects for wiping. http://www.dban.org/ On 12/16/2009 10:49 AM, Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. - Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Grant emailgr...@gmail.com wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. - Grant Hiren's Bootcd contains a bunch of useful tools for the computer professional, and a few that will help you in your disk wipery. It also comes in a convenient USB image. http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5090985/Hirens_Boot_USB_10.0
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 19:24 +, Mick wrote: First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition I wouldn't even mount it. I'd shred the entire block device (may take a while) then repartion/reinstall.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On 12/16/2009 2:24 PM, Mick wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them as required. If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite partition tables, but I would probably not bother. Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button, but I haven't looked into it in any detail. HTH. What's wrong with dd if=/dev/zero of/dev/sdxx? Marcus
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Mick wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them as required. If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite partition tables, but I would probably not bother. Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button, but I haven't looked into it in any detail. HTH. Also note that shred, at least the last I read, doesn't work to well on some file systems. I know this used to be true for reiserfs and some other journalized file systems. I'm thinking the dd thing may be the best way here. I don't think it cares about file systems when it does its thing. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
dd is pretty thorough... afterall, it writes to every single block on the disk.
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:36 PM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Mick wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them as required. If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite partition tables, but I would probably not bother. Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button, but I haven't looked into it in any detail. HTH. Also note that shred, at least the last I read, doesn't work to well on some file systems. I know this used to be true for reiserfs and some other journalized file systems. I'm thinking the dd thing may be the best way here. I don't think it cares about file systems when it does its thing. Dale :-) :-) That is, of course, when shredding individual files, where the final location and initial locations for them may not wind up being the same place on disk. When 'shredding' a whole partition, though, the file system itself ceases to matter, as it in itself is being overwritten as well as all the data it provides a means of indexing for. Incidentally, I believe the oft referenced here DBAN uses shred internally, last I looked. -- Poison [BLX] Joshua M. Murphy
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
Joshua Murphy wrote: On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:36 PM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Mick wrote: On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote: I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or however that works. First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them as required. If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite partition tables, but I would probably not bother. Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button, but I haven't looked into it in any detail. HTH. Also note that shred, at least the last I read, doesn't work to well on some file systems. I know this used to be true for reiserfs and some other journalized file systems. I'm thinking the dd thing may be the best way here. I don't think it cares about file systems when it does its thing. Dale :-) :-) That is, of course, when shredding individual files, where the final location and initial locations for them may not wind up being the same place on disk. When 'shredding' a whole partition, though, the file system itself ceases to matter, as it in itself is being overwritten as well as all the data it provides a means of indexing for. Incidentally, I believe the oft referenced here DBAN uses shred internally, last I looked. That makes sense. So, the OP shouldn't mount the drives but shred the disk itself? Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale
On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Dale rdalek1...@gmail.com wrote: Joshua Murphy wrote: That is, of course, when shredding individual files, where the final location and initial locations for them may not wind up being the same place on disk. When 'shredding' a whole partition, though, the file system itself ceases to matter, as it in itself is being overwritten as well as all the data it provides a means of indexing for. Incidentally, I believe the oft referenced here DBAN uses shred internally, last I looked. That makes sense. So, the OP shouldn't mount the drives but shred the disk itself? Dale :-) :-) I'm not at all sure *how* running shred on a mount point, as is mentioned in one of the responses, would really work... as I can't imagine it would have direct access to the underlying filesystem, and as it's pointed at, as far as it ought to care, a folder... I don't think it would do much of anything... but since my curiosity's piqued... chicane ~ # dd if=/dev/zero of=tmp.img bs=1M count=20 20+0 records in 20+0 records out 20971520 bytes (21 MB) copied, 0.102701 s, 204 MB/s chicane ~ # mkfs.ext3 tmp.img mke2fs 1.41.9 (22-Aug-2009) tmp.img is not a block special device. Proceed anyway? (y,n) y Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=1024 (log=0) Fragment size=1024 (log=0) 5136 inodes, 20480 blocks 1024 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=1 Maximum filesystem blocks=20971520 3 block groups 8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group 1712 inodes per group Superblock backups stored on blocks: 8193 Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (1024 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 23 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override. chicane ~ # mount -o loop tmp.img test/ chicane ~ # echo hello test/test.txt chicane ~ # shred test/ shred: test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory chicane ~ # shred -v -n 25 -z -u ~/test/ shred: /root/test/: failed to open for writing: Is a directory chicane ~ # umount test chicane ~ # shred -v -n 25 -z -u tmp.img shred: tmp.img: pass 1/26 (random)... shred: tmp.img: pass 2/26 (924924)... shred: tmp.img: pass 3/26 (6db6db)... shred: tmp.img: pass 4/26 (22)... shred: tmp.img: pass 5/26 (55)... shred: tmp.img: pass 6/26 (aa)... shred: tmp.img: pass 7/26 (77)... shred: tmp.img: pass 8/26 (db6db6)... shred: tmp.img: pass 9/26 (dd)... shred: tmp.img: pass 10/26 (11)... shred: tmp.img: pass 11/26 (492492)... shred: tmp.img: pass 12/26 (249249)... shred: tmp.img: pass 13/26 (random)... shred: tmp.img: pass 14/26 (88)... shred: tmp.img: pass 15/26 (cc)... shred: tmp.img: pass 16/26 (ee)... shred: tmp.img: pass 17/26 (33)... shred: tmp.img: pass 18/26 (44)... shred: tmp.img: pass 19/26 (bb)... shred: tmp.img: pass 20/26 (99)... shred: tmp.img: pass 21/26 (00)... shred: tmp.img: pass 22/26 (b6db6d)... shred: tmp.img: pass 23/26 (ff)... shred: tmp.img: pass 24/26 (66)... shred: tmp.img: pass 25/26 (random)... shred: tmp.img: pass 26/26 (00)... shred: tmp.img: removing shred: tmp.img: renamed to 000 shred: 000: renamed to 00 shred: 00: renamed to 0 shred: 0: renamed to shred: : renamed to 000 shred: 000: renamed to 00 shred: 00: renamed to 0 shred: tmp.img: removed (note that for 'special files' like real block devices, it doesn't do the rename/remove that it does for normal files) -- Poison [BLX] Joshua M. Murphy
