H. S. wrote:
I am in a situation where a computer is to be given away and prior to that it's hard disk needs to *thoroughly* cleaned (data consists of financial information, reports, class exams, competition exams, etc).
One method I have found on google is:
$>dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
to clean the first disk. Now this only writes data once. I am not sure about this method's thoroughness since I have read that multiple writes are necessary to really overwrite the original data.
That's good enough for most purposes. It will defeat anyone lacking a keen interest.
The second method that I have read is to delete everything from the disk and then write a large file (how to get his? random data?) repeatedly and fill the disk. Then remove these files with 'wipe'.
I think that's less thorough: it doesn't change filesystem data.
Any suggestions? Or any alternate methods? Then there is also the option of using a Windows programs to do this. But I am familiar with those.
Unscientifically proven: a destructive badblocks test. The next owner will be impressed that you so thoroughly tested the drive for him:-)
You could al try googling for some descriptive terms.
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Cheers John
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