OT: Can Reformatting A Hard Drive To ext3 Destroy All the Data On It?

[Jussi Lehtola]

Quoting "Sharpe, Sam J" <sam.sharpe+lists.redhat at gmail.com>:
> 2009/5/29 Alan Cox <alan at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>:
>>> 'shred' is part of coreutils (i.e. installed by default).
>>> Doing something like
>>>
>>> shred /dev/sdX
>>>
>>> as root will write various bit patterns 25 times over the entire drive
>>> (see the man page for more options).
>>
>> Whoopeeedoo. Thats still not the correct way to erase a disk.
>>
>> Use security erase, that is why it is there.
>
> I use a hammer, because it wins over all other solutions on both ease
> of use and catharsis.

For laptop (1.8" and 2.5") disks, sure. A couple of good bangs and you  
have yourself a maraca.

I haven't so far been able to destroy 3.5" disks with a hammer, as the  
enclosure is quite durable. A sledgehammer would probably do the  
trick. Or, you can open up the hard drive and smash the magnetic disks.
-- 
Jussi Lehtola
Fedora Project Contributor
jussilehtola at fedoraproject.org