Re: [PLUG] Hard Drive warranty RMA

[James Barrett <jadoba@jadoba.net>]

You could also use badblocks(8) to overwrite the data on the disk.
using 'badblocks -w /dev/sdX' will write a set of patterns to every
block of the disk before reading them back and checking their
consistency.  This will effectively destroy every speck of data on the
drive.

--
James Barrett

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 1:59 PM, brent timothy
saner<brent.saner@gmail.com> wrote:
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> TuskenTower wrote:
>
>> I'm going to do some Googling for a partition wiping utility.  Anyone
>> have any knowledge about these tools?
>>
>> thanks,
>> Amul
>>
>
> if it won't fsck, it's possibly that the disk is bad.
>
> first run badblocks(8) on it; it SHOULD be included by default in your
> distro.
>
> if that completes with no bad sectors, you can approach wiping a couple
> different ways.
>
> A.) dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<device> bs=1024
> A.) corollary:  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<device> bs=512 count=1
>
> B.) dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<device partition> bs=1024   [2]
>
> C.) using fdisk(8), parted(8), etc.   [3]
>
> D.) using shred(1) or wipe(1)   [4]
>
>
>
>
> [1] the first will zero out the entire drive, meaning it'll wipe out
> data AND the MBR (where the partition table resides). the second one
> only wipes out the MBR. i'd recommend the first one because if it's a
> bad filesystem format, then you want to get rid of the filesystem AND
> the partition table
>
> [2] this only zeros out data from a partition; the partition (and boot
> record, partition table, etc.) will still exist.
>
> [3] these essentially do what the corollary to A does- just let you blow
> away the partition table and start new. only instead of zeroing it out,
> they let you reconfigure it. note: if you recreate the same part table
> as before (i.e. delete the partitions, write the new part. table, then
> make new partitions at the same sectors/sizes etc.), the data will STILL
> EXIST. it's a sort of neat trick, really, but i digress. that's why if
> you want a fresh start on a drive i recommend zeroing the whole thing out.
>
> [4] these are secure wiping utilities. they are designed to zero out
> drives as before, but instead overwrite with several passes of random
> data making forensic data recovery increasingly more difficult with
> every pass. they are, however, MUCH slower than method A. you can also
> use DBAN (dban.org, iirc).
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