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Thread: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

  1. #1
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    how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    Someone told me that there is a command to completely wipe a hard drive? Something like cat dev 0 >/dev/sdb?? but that obviously doesn't work. Can anyone tell me the correct command to send 0's to a hard drive? Thanks...

  2. #2
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    I know that rm -rf completely removes everything from your hard drive.
    Go to terminal and enter that code in. Don't forget to type "sudo" first.

    If I'm wrong, I'm a beginner so I apologize.

  3. #3
    sandysandy's Avatar
    sandysandy is offline Grande Half-n-Half Cinnamon Ubuntu
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    for secure wipe of hdd see this link

    http://dban.sourceforge.net/

    regards
    Sandy

  4. #4
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    does anyone know the cat dev 0 thing though??

  5. #5
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    dban is definately the way to go. I typically use the Ultimate Boot CD when I run dban. It is one of the many useful utilities that is included.
    Desktop: Q6600 OC: 343 x 9, 4 GB RAM, 8600 GTS Twinview (22",17"), 1.5 TB RAID 5
    Laptop: Lenovo T61 T7300 @ 2 GHz, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 140M Quadro, 160 GB harddrive
    Remember to mark posts as [SOLVED] when your problem is resolved

  6. #6
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    You mean something like this?


    Code:
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

    If you want a really rhorough wipe, use dban.

    http://dban.sourceforge.net/

  7. #7
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    Its a long story really. The problem is its a 500GB drive that has become 136GB because of a bios issue moving the drive between computers with older bios. So, apparently the only way to get the drive to detect as being 500GB again is to totally zero byte it...formatting and partitioning don't work. It is always detecting as 136GB when it is actually 500GB...
    Last edited by e1ektrob0y; April 26th, 2008 at 07:00 AM. Reason: spelling

  8. #8
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    Ultimate Boot CD has a variety of disk wiping tools.

    I know Active Kill Disk has the option to 0 the drive completely (in fact, is default for the "trial" version).

  9. #9
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    Quote Originally Posted by sandysandy View Post
    for secure wipe of hdd see this link

    http://dban.sourceforge.net/

    regards
    I use Dariks Boot n' Nuke !

  10. #10
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    Re: how to completely wipe a hard drive?

    aha! found it...
    Code:
    cat /dev/zero > /dev/sdb

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