In Windows most overwrite programs start with the File Allocation Table and delete out 'deleted entries' before they write some kind of 'goo' over every sector of the HD.

This first step would stop 99% of the people from recovering lost data.

Is there a way to do the same in Linux?

This just takes too long...
dd if=/dev/zero of=trash.txt bs=16M; sync; rm -f trash.txt

thanks to everyone in advance.

You can copy your harddisk with clonezilla.

I do not know if something like bleachbit will be any faster as I've never had a need for data destruction like this, but maybe give it a try.

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There is a program called shred that may be of interest to you.
https://www.gnu.org/software/coreuti...nvocation.html

I am only looking to do a real quick wipe of the "deleted" files on a hard drive; if even possible.

DD does a fine job of zero's or random data but takes a long time.

Is this an HDD or SSD?

SSD most of the time.

Either or both are encrypted too.

SSDs move writes around constantly, even if the OS thinks it's writing to the same cell and overwriting the data, it isn't. The only way to securely erase an SSD is to overwrite everything, as you're doing with your dd command, and you need to run it multiple times to clear out the extra cells that the SSD firmware holds in reserve for wear leveling and backup.

Your original example of Windows programs overwriting the recently deleted files on disk will accomplish absolutely nothing on an SSD, except for increased write cycles and wear.

See the "Only Do This If You Have To" section in this article:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/securel...ut-destroying/

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Thanks. But it looks like the only software to do an electronic wipe is Windows or thumb drive boot. I was hoping for something that could be installed and used on a regular "cronjob". Maybe later some Linux programer will come up with something or the manufacturers will help us Linux server guys out.