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06-19-2014, 03:27 PM
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#1
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Member
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: London, England, UK
Distribution: CentOS 6, CentOS 7
Posts: 299
Rep: 
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Suggested disk wiping software
Got a load of old disk drives that we need to completely wipe of all trace of customers data. Any suggestions what might be the best software available to do this? Do I need anything special or can this be done using any of the Linux Live CDs?
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06-19-2014, 03:29 PM
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#2
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Senior Member
Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Detroit, MI
Distribution: GNU/Linux systemd
Posts: 4,278
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I like this one best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_O7-rqcHc
Works great as long as you don't expect to be re-using the drives later.
Seriously though, DBAN is my go to.
Last edited by szboardstretcher; 06-19-2014 at 03:30 PM.
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1 members found this post helpful.
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06-19-2014, 04:53 PM
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#3
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Member
Registered: Jun 2008
Posts: 128
Rep:
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1 members found this post helpful.
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06-19-2014, 05:22 PM
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#4
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2013
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,982
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DBAN works and would be suitable for this purpose. You can use dd and urandom also.
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06-19-2014, 11:45 PM
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#5
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Member
Registered: Jan 2013
Location: EU
Distribution: Debian
Posts: 269
Rep:
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Don't use dd with urandom, it's terribly slow. Go for this instead:
# cryptsetup open --type plain -d /dev/urandom /dev/<block-device> to_be_wiped
# cat /dev/zero > /dev/mapper/to_be_wiped
See FAQ item 2.19: https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup...AskedQuestions
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06-20-2014, 01:43 AM
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#6
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Senior Member
Registered: Sep 2012
Posts: 1,385
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Usually I use dd.
With urandom, the job is very slow. We're talking about many hours or days, depends on disk size and processor speed.
For my external 300GB hd, with an old cpu (AMD Sempron LE-1150), my times are:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/tobewiped bs=1MB (3 hours)
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/tobewiped bs=1MB (30 hours)
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1 members found this post helpful.
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06-20-2014, 06:06 AM
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#7
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Member
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: London, England, UK
Distribution: CentOS 6, CentOS 7
Posts: 299
Original Poster
Rep: 
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Sounds like the easiest way is just to use dd from a Linux Live CD.
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06-20-2014, 06:17 AM
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#8
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Senior Member
Registered: Aug 2011
Location: Dublin
Distribution: Centos 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
Posts: 3,572
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dd and then drill through the platters.
There are also companies that will come on-site and physically shred disk drives.
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06-20-2014, 06:36 AM
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#9
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Member
Registered: May 2009
Location: Perth, AU
Distribution: LinuxMint
Posts: 390
Rep:
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which is preferred"
- speed?.
- accuracy?.
if you have several old ide drives,
then you have to connect & reboot for each one. ..
so, maybe reboot each time with a live_cd,
- use either DD or Gparted
then put a drill bit thru that drive. ..
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06-20-2014, 06:46 AM
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#10
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Member
Registered: Sep 2011
Location: Scotland
Distribution: Slackware, Devuan, Android
Posts: 136
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Another method is shred, which is included with most live CDs in my limited experience. The effect is similar to doing 25 passes of dd with /dev/urandom, but I've no idea how it compares for speed.
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06-20-2014, 08:03 AM
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#11
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Member
Registered: Oct 2007
Location: Italy
Distribution: Linux Slackware 14.1
Posts: 35
Rep:
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If you want you can try my encryption wizards suite.
https://github.com/LCyberspazio/TwoCentsCryptoFrontend
It uses dd(1) for disk wiping... use it at your own risk.
It does nothing special... just run repeatedly the dd command as specified in this topic.
By the way... dd wiping is slow. It's acceptable for volumes in the order of 4GB, more is a pain!
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06-20-2014, 08:25 AM
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#12
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Senior Member
Registered: Sep 2012
Posts: 1,385
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pastychomper
Another method is shred, which is included with most live CDs in my limited experience. The effect is similar to doing 25 passes of dd with /dev/urandom, but I've no idea how it compares for speed.
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If I remember well, the default is 3. Then you can specify the number of passed with -n option.
Last edited by kooru; 06-20-2014 at 08:33 AM.
Reason: edit: resource man shred
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06-20-2014, 10:39 AM
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#13
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Member
Registered: Jun 2008
Posts: 128
Rep:
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Why not just fill the drive with zeros using dd? Much faster than filling it with random data. It won't be possible to restore any data even when filled with zeros, not with any software anyway. And if the drives contains such sensitive data that it could pose a threat to national security you should physically shred them anyway.
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06-20-2014, 03:21 PM
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#14
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Moderator
Registered: Mar 2008
Posts: 22,361
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Wear eye protection.
Get a big,
Hammer.
Hit it like you live.
Turn in parts to recycle company.
For the most part, you have to write every bit once or more to actually destroy to some degree all data. No matter what you use, it takes time. It is best if you can boot up to the fastest mode the drive can handle.
Some apps may not write all bits, they know that damaging one out of 8 or so the data will be lost. They would be faster.
Dban is one of the favored for this task. It generally uses the fastest means to securely wipe a drive.
Norton's ghost used to be pretty fast as it used file by file. It still may be that one could create a scheme that just put new files over old data. Set it to have smaller files use more area to speed it up.
Last edited by jefro; 06-20-2014 at 03:25 PM.
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06-20-2014, 03:24 PM
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#15
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2013
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,982
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Before whipping out the hammers and drills, maybe you should ask if the HDD is still working and will be used again ...
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