Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Preparing a laptop for sale

[Joshua Murphy]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:36 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:
> Mick wrote:
>>
>> On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and
>>> install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any
>>> more).  I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo.  How
>>> would you take it from there?  I'm looking for something quick and
>>> easy.  My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of
>>> wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or
>>> however that works.
>>>
>>
>> First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred:
>>
>> # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition
>>
>> Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them
>> as required.  If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what
>> you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite
>> partition tables, but I would probably not bother.
>>
>> Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button,
>> but I haven't looked into it in any detail.
>>
>> HTH.
>>
>
> Also note that shred, at least the last I read, doesn't work to well on some
> file systems.  I know this used to be true for reiserfs and some other
> journalized file systems.
>
> I'm thinking the dd thing may be the best way here.  I don't think it cares
> about file systems when it does its thing.
>
> Dale
>
> :-)  :-)
>

That is, of course, when shredding individual files, where the final
location and initial locations for them may not wind up being the same
place on disk. When 'shredding' a whole partition, though, the file
system itself ceases to matter, as it in itself is being overwritten
as well as all the data it provides a means of indexing for.

Incidentally, I believe the oft referenced here DBAN uses shred
internally, last I looked.

-- 
Poison [BLX]
Joshua M. Murphy