Need to do low format or zeroes on external usb drive

leehrsn53 · 09-18-2010, 01:18 PM

I have an external 500GB USB drive that I want to sell. I've copied some stuff to it and practiced partitioning and formatting with it, but I want to use something to erase it completely. Is this possible if the USB is connected to a ThinkCentre 8187-EJU with an Ubuntu 10.04 OS? I've used Dban to erase regular hard disks but don't any software that could be installed on my computer that would erase a USB drive. Any suggestions?

prayag_pjs · 09-18-2010, 01:33 PM

Use shred

Shred originally designed to delete file securely. It deletes a file securely, first overwriting it to hide its contents. However same can be used to erase hard disk. For example your hard disk name is /dev/sda (SCSI hard disk) then type following command:

Code:

# shred -n 5 -vz /dev/sda

you can achieve this using knoppix http://www.knoppix.net/

prayag_pjs · 09-18-2010, 01:35 PM

Use shred

Shred originally designed to delete file securely. It deletes a file securely, first overwriting it to hide its contents. However same can be used to erase hard disk. For example your hard disk name is /dev/sda (SCSI hard disk) then type following command:

Code:

# shred -n 5 -vz /dev/sda

you can achieve this using by booting from knoppix ... http://www.knoppix.net/

cantab · 09-18-2010, 06:07 PM

Plain old dd should be fine.

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-SOMETHING bs=1M

Be very very careful you wipe the correct drive! Using the /dev/disk/by-id/ folder gives you an easy-to-understand drive name.

If your data is very sensitive, use if=/dev/urandom instead of if=/dev/zero. But that's slower.

leehrsn53 · 09-18-2010, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cantab

Plain old dd should be fine.

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-SOMETHING bs=1M

Be very very careful you wipe the correct drive! Using the /dev/disk/by-id/ folder gives you an easy-to-understand drive name.

If your data is very sensitive, use if=/dev/urandom instead of if=/dev/zero. But that's slower.

__________

Thanks very much! Is it okay to use Gpart to get the "dev" "disk" "by-id" "usb-something which I assume will be discernible in Gpart"? I'm a real novice at this stuff but I think I can get it.

Thanks to both responders for your advice! This should be a real learning experience!

Lee

harryhaller · 09-19-2010, 07:07 AM

post deleted - misunderstood question