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  3. How to shred hard drive using GParted

How to shred hard drive using GParted

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  • K k5054

    AFAIK, gparted does not have a shred option. There is a shred command available from the command line and you should be able to do

    sudo shred -v /dev/sdX

    . That will erase the whole drive. I've not tried it but I expect that shed -v /dev/sdXP would erase partition P. Check the docs on that. Note that this will erase the formatting, so you'll have to recreate the file system(s) for any partitions you shred. If you don't have shred installed, or can't install it for some reason, then you can use dd

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

    will overwrite the harddrive with all zeros. You might also use if=/dev/urandom, to write random-ish data over the drive before formatting.

    Keep Calm and Carry On

    S Offline
    S Offline
    swampwiz
    wrote on last edited by
    #21

    The system will be given to charity, so I don't care what condition the hard drive is in. :)

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    • K k5054

      AFAIK, gparted does not have a shred option. There is a shred command available from the command line and you should be able to do

      sudo shred -v /dev/sdX

      . That will erase the whole drive. I've not tried it but I expect that shed -v /dev/sdXP would erase partition P. Check the docs on that. Note that this will erase the formatting, so you'll have to recreate the file system(s) for any partitions you shred. If you don't have shred installed, or can't install it for some reason, then you can use dd

      dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

      will overwrite the harddrive with all zeros. You might also use if=/dev/urandom, to write random-ish data over the drive before formatting.

      Keep Calm and Carry On

      S Offline
      S Offline
      swampwiz
      wrote on last edited by
      #22

      I did: if=/dev/urandom and the console window started printing random characters.

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      • S swampwiz

        I've done a repartition and format, but I understand that I should shred it as well. When I tried the command "shred", it said it didn't understand the command. :confused:

        C Offline
        C Offline
        Cp Coder
        wrote on last edited by
        #23

        My preferred way to clean a disk: Connect the disk to computer. Open an elevated command prompt. Type Diskpart In Diskpart type list disk. Disks attached will be numbered 0, 1, 2, 3 to whatever. Make a CAREFUL note of the number of the disk to be cleaned. Do not choose the wrong disk! Type select disk n, where n is the number of the disk to be cleaned. Type clean all. Every sector on the disk will be set to zero, destroying all data on the disk and clearing all partitions. Afterwards, type convert mbr or convert gpt, depending whether you want an mbr or gpt disk. Now you can start creating partitions and formatting them. WARNING: Diskpart has no mercy. It has no "Are you sure?" prompts. Every command is immediately executed with no hesitation. Google Diskpart for a complete list of available commands.

        Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!

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        • C Clumpco

          FOL - Falling over laughing

          So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8

          G Offline
          G Offline
          Gary R Wheeler
          wrote on last edited by
          #24

          Did I mention the original 8x16 photo was monochrome, and the enhanced final photo in vibrant color?

          Software Zen: delete this;

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