Seeking confirmation for shred /dev/sdc
 

Hi, I have an old flash drive that's got some files, and had some files that seem to have disappeared (it was a freebie flash drive!). So, I wanted to shred it before I tossed it. But I wanted to get some final confirmation before I shred it, that the command shred /dev/sdc would work ok. df output is:

/dev/sdc 513284 9476 503808 2% /media/disk

and /media/disk is that flash drive. Using that shred on the /dev/sdc won't somehow turn around and mess up my partitions or anything right? I just wanted to make 110% sure before I did something that could turn out to kill my system!

Thanks!!

Try it the safe way first. With the flash drive mounted, run "shred /media/disk/* ". That should only shred files showing in /media/disk, and not mess with partitions.

Ok,unfortunately it won't erase the files cause it seems the flash drive is just shot, so I did it the old fashioned way - broke it apart, put it between magnets, and will dump it in the garbage - that should do it!

Thanks for the response, it's good to know for the next flash drive.