| 1 |
Mike Gilbert <floppym@g.o> writes: |
| 2 |
|
| 3 |
[...] |
| 4 |
|
| 5 |
> If you are not worried about securely removing all data and simply |
| 6 |
> want to fool fdisk into thinking your drive is empty, use the wipefs |
| 7 |
> utility. This will zero-out key bytes like the MBR, partition table, |
| 8 |
> filesystem magic numbers, etc. |
| 9 |
> |
| 10 |
> You'll want to run it once for each partition, and then once for the |
| 11 |
> whole device. |
| 12 |
> |
| 13 |
> wipefs -a /dev/sdx1 |
| 14 |
> wipefs -a /dev/sdx2 |
| 15 |
> wipefs -a /dev/sdx |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
This sounds like more what I had in mind... there is no worry about |
| 18 |
making data irrecoverable. I'll check this out... booting the |
| 19 |
hardware with a liveCD of some sort that I know has that tool on it. |
| 20 |
SystemrescueCD probabably has it. |
| 21 |
|
| 22 |
Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@×××××.com> writes: |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
[...] |
| 25 |
|
| 26 |
> You can use cfdisk (or another partitioning tool) and delete all partitions. |
| 27 |
> |
| 28 |
> Then, delete the MBR (Master Boot Record), which is where boot |
| 29 |
> managers put themselves. You do that with: |
| 30 |
> |
| 31 |
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/your_hard_disk bs=446 count=1 |
| 32 |
|
| 33 |
[...] |
| 34 |
|
| 35 |
This may be all I really need. I had considered it to start but had |
| 36 |
the notion that it might not be that hard to return a disk to its new |
| 37 |
condition ... apparently that is not really all that easy or in this |
| 38 |
case ... even necessary. |
| 39 |
|
| 40 |
I've googled fairly extensively on the subject and did not find a way |
| 41 |
described anywhere to return a disk to what is called its raw state. |
| 42 |
Or, put another way, the state a disk is in why you buy one new. |
| 43 |
|
| 44 |
There may even be legal ramifications I suppose along the line of |
| 45 |
selling used discs as new after some kind of processing. |
Archives