I need to destroy an ubuntu installation......

[Thewhistlingwind]

In a way that the home directory is obliterated. Any good ideas? I want to simulate a real crash, not just use RM.

[madjr]

wut?! lol

[Thewhistlingwind]

wut?! lol

Testing disk recovery software.

[Hedgehog1]

May I suggest copy a large amount of data in the /home directory, and about 1/2 through the copy unplug the PC?

[slim_pickins]

In a way that the home directory is obliterated. Any good ideas? I want to simulate a real crash, not just use RM.

try doing anything as root. :)

[Rasa1111]

http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2008/03/how-to-intentionally-screw-up-and-wipe.html
http://www.secure-gear.com/linux/How-to-destroy-all-your-data-on-your-Ubuntu-Linux-system-470-1.htm

careful now.

[jocko]

Unplug the power supply while resizing a partition?

[VanR]

Try to install Gnome 3!!!! That should do it. :popcorn:

[Thewhistlingwind]

Try to install Gnome 3!!!! That should do it. :popcorn:

We have a winner! ;)

But really, great ideas people, keep em coming.

[Rasa1111]

Try to install Gnome 3!!!! That should do it. :popcorn:
hahaha!
that made me laugh. :lol: :KS

[Hedgehog1]

Unplug the power supply while resizing a partition?

Fiendishly clever! Bravo!

[nothingspecial]

THE COMMAND IN THIS POST WILL COMPLETELY DESTROY YOUR SYSTEM


Put home on another hard drive, unmount it, then type this


dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sd?

Change the question mark for the drive in question a,b,c....... etc

That should test your software :P

[Paqman]

Depends what kind of failure you're trying to simulate. Do you want to disrupt the filesystem or just the data?

[mips]

THE COMMAND IN THIS POST WILL COMPLETELY DESTROY YOUR SYSTEM


Put home on another hard drive, unmount it, then type this


dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sd?

Change the question mark for the drive in question a,b,c....... etc

That should test your software :P

No software is gonna recover that.

[deconstrained]

man shred

[Grenage]

No software is gonna recover that.

Lol, that's a fact.

[triceratops]

Burn up a CD with the DBAN (Darik's Burn and Nuke) (http://www.dban.org/) ISO. Set BIOS for cd-rom bootup, pop in the cd, reboot, watch hdd go bye-bye. Uses Department of Defense overwrite algorithm. Will take a long time on 100+ GB drives, so best to shut the monitor off and come back the next day.

I keep a DBAN disk in my toolkit all the time for zeroing out old cheap computers for linux overwrites.

[stealth.]

Burn up a CD with the DBAN (Darik's Burn and Nuke) (http://www.dban.org/) ISO. Set BIOS for cd-rom bootup, pop in the cd, reboot, watch hdd go bye-bye. Uses Department of Defense overwrite algorithm. Will take a long time on 100+ GB drives, so best to shut the monitor off and come back the next day.

I keep a DBAN disk in my toolkit all the time for zeroing out old cheap computers for linux overwrites.

+1 to DBAN, it took me approx 72 hrs for my 500GB laptop drive with the Gutmann method.

Also, when I was doing my Arch install I accidentally "dd'ed" my HDD, completely screwed the partition table.

[Thewhistlingwind]

Depends what kind of failure you're trying to simulate. Do you want to disrupt the filesystem or just the data?

Preferably both.:P

To the people who suggested Dban (DD, lol. Disk Destroyer......) If your of the belief that ANY software can recover data from a disk after a use of dban (In Esp. if you use something more damaging then DOD short.) then why are you bothering too use it, when the time taken to wipe is SO much longer?

[Grenage]

Preferably both.:P

To the people who suggested Dban (DD, lol. Disk Destroyer......) If your of the belief that ANY software can recover data from a disk after a use of dban (In Esp. if you use something more damaging then DOD short.) then why are you bothering too use it, when the time taken to wipe is SO much longer?

We don't, and I believe that nothingspecial was probably being playful. no recovery software is going to got anything back after a random fill.

[Thewhistlingwind]

We don't, and I believe that nothingspecial was probably being playful. no recovery software is going to got anything back after a random fill.

No, I KNOW that on general principal, I wanted to see their responses. My comp science teachers response when I mentioned it was "A peace of mind thing, it doesn't actually work, data deletion is impossible." so I figured the responses would be.....interesting.

EDIT: Though calling him a comp sci teacher may be giving him qualifications he doesn't have.

[Paqman]

+1 to DBAN, it took me approx 72 hrs for my 500GB laptop drive with the Gutmann method.


Sorry to say you probably wasted a lot of time there. There's no need to ever do a full Gutmann wipe, all thirty-something writes. One pass with random data will render your data just as unrecoverable as the Gutmann method.

[nothingspecial]

We don't, and I believe that nothingspecial was probably being playful.

That's what the tongue out smiley is supposed to signify :D

If you are interested in recovering data then format. If you are interested in recovering from bad situations then here is one to try if you have a spare instalation. I'm not going to post the actual command because someone might copy and paste it. So I'll outline the modifications you need to make it work afterwards.

Try getting out of this one.

First you need to move into /usr/bin


x in `ls`; do -f $x $y; y=?; done

Put for at the beginning of the command.

Change the question mark for $x and insert mv inbetween do and -f.

Also run it as root.

That will mix up every file in /usr/bin in that it will swap the names of most of your applications. You will still have bash because bash is in bin, some things like ls will work but most things will not.

Can your software recover from that?

By the way, I have no idea how to recover from it.

[Thewhistlingwind]

If you are interested in recovering from bad situations then here is one to try if you have a spare instalation.......


Data. However, I'd be worried about my sanity if this WASN'T being done on a spare install. (Or moreover, it WAS being done on a production machine.)

Also, that's devious and evil, I love it, gotta try getting out of that later.


Sorry to say you probably wasted a lot of time there. There's no need to ever do a full Gutmann wipe, all thirty-something writes. One pass with random data will render your data just as unrecoverable as the Gutmann method.

The point of the gutmann wipe is to make your data irretrievable by having your disk fail halfway through it.:D

[nothingspecial]

You'll get funny error messages like this


Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason a1 on CPU 0.
You have some hardware problem
Dazed and Confused...................but trying to continue

[Paqman]

The point of the gutmann wipe is to make your data irretrievable by having your disk fail halfway through it.:D

Lol. Either that or taking so long that humanity is extinct by the time it finishes, so there's no one left to steal your datas.

[Retlol]

Format the drive.

[Rasa1111]

lol, i love how such random looking characters can do such disastrous things! :lol: :P