On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:36 PM, Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Mick wrote: >> >> On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote: >> >>> >>> I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and >>> install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any >>> more). I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo. How >>> would you take it from there? I'm looking for something quick and >>> easy. My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of >>> wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or >>> however that works. >>> >> >> First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred: >> >> # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition >> >> Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them >> as required. If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what >> you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite >> partition tables, but I would probably not bother. >> >> Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button, >> but I haven't looked into it in any detail. >> >> HTH. >> > > Also note that shred, at least the last I read, doesn't work to well on some > file systems. I know this used to be true for reiserfs and some other > journalized file systems. > > I'm thinking the dd thing may be the best way here. I don't think it cares > about file systems when it does its thing. > > Dale > > :-) :-) >
That is, of course, when shredding individual files, where the final location and initial locations for them may not wind up being the same place on disk. When 'shredding' a whole partition, though, the file system itself ceases to matter, as it in itself is being overwritten as well as all the data it provides a means of indexing for. Incidentally, I believe the oft referenced here DBAN uses shred internally, last I looked. -- Poison [BLX] Joshua M. Murphy
