---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rafael Fontenelle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 25/04/2008 01:19 Subject: Re: /dev/null > /dev/sdb1 ! To: paragasu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2008/4/24, paragasu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > >> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M >> >> to fix it. i did try that command but it seems doesn't help much either. >> > > Could this command have the same result as 'cat /dcev/null > /dev/sdb' ? > > > actually, i read some post from > > http://howto.wikia.com/wiki/Howto_wipe_a_hard_drive_clean_in_Linux > > > and some post from linuxforums about this > Strange. I set a virtual machine with an extra harddisk and I just ran 'cat /dev/null > /dev/hdd' as root with /dev/hdd3 umounted in the first attempt and then mounted in the second, but nothing happened with my partition or the whole virtual disk. See the output below: rffdebian01:/# cat /dev/null > /dev/hdd rffdebian01:/# cd /mnt/hdd3/ rffdebian01:/mnt/hdd3# ls file rffdebian01:/mnt/hdd3# It seems that /dev/null really returned _nothing_. Very different from 'cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdd'. This one really formated the virtual harddisk, cleaning incl. the partition table (I had to remake the partitions with cfdisk). Also displayed a message after completing the harddisk with zeros. rffdebian01:/# umount /dev/hdd3 && cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdd cat: write error: No space left on device rffdebian01:/# Note: when I ran this with /dev/hdd3 mounted, I got a lot of error messages and the system didn't want to umount not either reboot. Pretty messy. So, I think that the command 'cat /dev/null > /dev/hdd' did nothing to your system. Maybe something else? Cheers, Rafael
