Spam: How to wipe a HD?

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

Vinicius wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> How to wipe a HD, please?

Wipe as in?

If you want to destroy partition table info and remove any boot loaders 
from MBR (assuming you want to wipe /dev/hda):

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda count=10

If you want to zero out entire disk (might take long time, depending on 
the size of the disk):

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

If you want to delete information so that some university student can't 
recover it using equipment from the university lab, there are some 
commercially available applications that will overwrite entire disk 
several times with specially designed patterns.

If you want to delete information so that NSA can't recover it, use 
sledge hammer and don't stop until you make disk plates into fine dust. 
  However, if NSA is after you, they already have the information, so it 
is pointless to destroy your HD.

-- 
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca>    Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator                           1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276                     Winnipeg, MB  R3T 1L7