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wannadumpwindows
July 4th, 2008, 08:01 AM
You know that evil command? The one that everyone says never use? Well, there's another way.

I was trying to erase and overwrite an external hard disk the other day. I was using the "Shred" command. Let me tell you what, with the right options, it will toast your disk in a heartbeat. LoL.

Accidentally hit the enter key before you type the entire device path, and POOF your install is toast. I can tell you I won't be letting that happen again.

Just thought I'd throw that out as a little warning for the rest of you. Don't do it. LoL.
JT9161
July 4th, 2008, 08:23 AM
In comparison I think Shred is even more powerful as you know what just deletes, Shred overwrites data with random 1s and 0s.
wannadumpwindows
July 4th, 2008, 08:27 AM
Yeah, shred is brutal. But I got lucky. I caught it right away with the good old <ctrl+c>. All that it wiped out was the EULA and my initrd. I reinstalled the kernel I was running at the time, and it was pretty much back to normal.

I hadn't upgraded to hardy yet at that point anyways. So it sounded like a good time to upgrade. So I guess it all worked out in the end. Other than the fact that I can't get my wireless working for anything right now.

I think it's still network-manager messing with me again. Here I come again WICD. LoL.

P.S. I still liked Gutsy better.
wannadumpwindows
July 4th, 2008, 08:29 AM
All I can say, is thank god it overwrites 26 times. It gave me time to catch it before much was gone!
thschiavo
July 4th, 2008, 08:41 AM
... O.o... Didn't know...
wannadumpwindows
July 4th, 2008, 09:40 AM
... O.o... Didn't know...

I knew, and I still screwed it up . LoL.
beercz
July 4th, 2008, 11:35 AM
You DO have a backup don't you?
lisati
July 4th, 2008, 11:46 AM
You DO have a backup don't you?
What's that? :):):):)
Barrucadu
July 4th, 2008, 01:51 PM
dd can be brutal too, don't use that on the wrong disk ;)
RATM_Owns
July 4th, 2008, 02:43 PM
Yeah. Like...
(I'll change it a little to prevent accidental copying and pasting)

[dd] if=/dev/urandom (.Dont.Try.) of=/dev/hda
Overwrites the data with completely random characters.
wannadumpwindows
July 7th, 2008, 01:21 AM
Yeah. Like...
(I'll change it a little to prevent accidental copying and pasting)

[dd] if=/dev/urandom (.Dont.Try.) of=/dev/hda
Overwrites the data with completely random characters.

Also good to know.

And yes, I have multiple backups. Gotta love the sbackup with a remote server holding on to everything for me. :)