Fdisk screwup

[Steven Stern]

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On 05/09/2009 12:26 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> Tom Horsley wrote:
>> On Sat, 9 May 2009 08:02:22 -0500
>> Dave Ihnat wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm...just curious; why didn't you just cat /dev/zero >/dev/sdc?
>>
>> I don't think cat knows when to stop.
>>
>> I always use dd to restrict it to a few disk blocks - I find that
>> wiping the first 10K or so usually gets enough to make the disk
>> look blank, and doesn't take as long as wiping the whole disk.
>> (Of course if you are going for security, you might want to wipe
>> the whole disk).
>>
> If you want security you go for zeros to avoid reading something eveil.
> If you don't want to share your data with something evel, dban is your
> friend, although somewhat overkill for flash, which I suspect has a lot
> less memory than magnetic media.
> 
> Definitely what you do before scrapping old drives.
> 
I find an 8 lb sledgehammer and a couple of good swings is both
emotionally satisfying and sufficient to render a disk or flash drive
unreadable.

- --

  Steve
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