DISCUSSION: Clean Hard Drive (zero fill)
This thread is to discuss the article titled: Clean Hard Drive (zero fill)
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What's to discuss? dumping /dev/zero to the hard drive will send an endless supply of nothing across the hard drive.
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AFAIK This is an automatically generated post when you submit a LinuxAnswer.
As far as what's to discuss, I guess whether others have used it and had success. Personally, I find it's a great alternative to paying for commercial drive wiping utilities. |
Could you explain how doing a low-level format "could
damage newer (pretty much anything over 512MB) drives." I have used utilities from Maxtor, Seagate, and IBM to do low-level formats on drives for at least 7 years, and have never had a single problem. And I've never even seen a drive of 512MB or under. In fact, there are at least 4 drives in computers we're using every day, which are under 3 years old, and all 40GB or above, which have had more than one low- level format -- and they're all just fine. |
^^Agreed Doesn't hurt the drives, either in linux or with manufacturer software
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Really the most it does is void the manufacturer's warranty. I had a reason to do a low level format on a hard drive in years. Back in the day of the whopping 10, 20 and 40 MB hard drive days, there may have been a reason. Drives are formatted by the manufacturer, so why would you ever have to do a low level format? I am curious how long it takes. It used to be a nearly all night thing back with those small drives.
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I don't know where you got this information, or if that was just a guess. I'd like to see you produce some "evidence" to corroborate that statement; otherwise, you should edit your post appropriately. About four years ago I had a new IBM hard drive in a RAID array that seemed to be defective, and IBM told me to low-level format both drives as part of the evaluation process before they gave me a RMA number. I have these tools from IBM, Seagate, and Maxtor. I believe I had the same tool from Western Digital until perhaps 1999 when I quit using WD drives. I've used a lot of Maxtor hard drives, and their utilities for a number of years now. The reasons to perform a low-level format may vary, but is the safest way to write a drive completely back to zeros if a "zero fill" option is not available. You can read this page from Maxtor where they suggest a low-level format, and provide the utility. Quote:
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I retract some of that posting. The proper term would be that some manufacturers will void the warranty. I found about 20 before I quit searching. Try "low level format void warranty" in google for a comrehensive list of web sites supporting my statement. The fact of the matter is DO What You Want. It is your equipment after all.
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Five pages into Google <Linux> produced not one single manufacturer link at all. And five pages deep into a normal Google search and I still fail to see one single manufacturer who says "low level formatting voids your warranty." I did see one post where someone else told a user that low-level formatting voids your warranty, and the user posted back Quote:
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And this from Seagate, also: Quote:
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You said: Anyone can post something on the internet, which does not make it a fact.
I guess there is no practical use for this forum then. I will quit it. You are free to have mt posts removed. |
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When others read our information, they're tyring to get some legitimate help. I've simply asked you to provide some evidence that substantiates your post. It's not my responsibility to edit someone else's incorrect posts. I've edited mine, when it was brought to my attention that what I had posted was incorrect. As for the practical use of this forum, that really must depend upon the quality of the information. |
Beside zeroing with dd, dban can be used 2.
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Why not use /dev/random (thrice to seven times from a script)? Makes even forensic tries of data recovery near hopeless...
See also http://dban.sourceforge.net/ <oops, already said above ;)> http://freshmeat.net/projects/securedelete/ |
Even just performing a:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=1024 Will do the job of wiping the drive in a manner where no partitions and data appear. I know it wouldn't wipe the whole drive but if you selling or giving away the drive, I doubt they would be someone that could actually recover the data left on the device, instead they are going to install whatever it is they attained the drive for... ;) |
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