wiping a harddrive

[dosed150]

how would i completly wipe all data on a hard drive i need more hard drive space so im canibalising my old pc

[Nu-Buntu]

If you are adding it as a second drive to a current Ubuntu installation, just use gparted or qtparted. In Windows or DOS, try fdisk.

[gord]

you'll be looking for a command called 'format'.

[dosed150]

yeh ill be adding it to this ubuntu pc from my old windows me pc

[jdong]

Put it in, then go to System->Administration->Disks... Select the new disk drive, and partition it accordingly.

Note that to extend onto this new disk, you have to use LVM. Other, you'll need to mount it to a new folder, and start putting stuff in there.

[Dragineez]

OOO! OOO! Call on me! I know the answer! Three weeks into converting to Linux and someone finally asked a question I know the answer to! Actually, I've gained an uncomfortable level experience with this, having done numerous install, nuke, reinstall cycles (just for fun you know, not to correct my FUs). If you REALLY want to totally nuke the disc, try shred.

[professor_chaos]

Or a big magnet.... :) :) :) :) ;)

[narcolept]

sudo fdisk /dev/drivelabel(just hda,hdb,etc)

Then follow the directions. erase all partitions, create a new partition(s). Write to disk, then make a filesystem


sudo mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdwhatever

[blastus]

DBAN (http://dban.sourceforge.net/). It's the best open source program out there.

[migo]

To wipe all data, you'll need to do a low level format, that's only an issue if you don't want it to be recoverable by any means.

[narcolept]

It sounds like the OP was just looking to clear out his disk in order to use it as a linux partition.

[dosed150]

yeh thats what i want to have it as a second harddrive on this ubuntu system

thanx everyone