On Wed, 26 Dec 2001, James wrote: > Hey everyone, > > I am wondering, is there any software I can use with Linux that can scramble > everything on my hard disk while running in memory, so I can prepare for a > new install? I want it to be impossible to recover deleted files.
Boot off a CD or single disk system such as toms root boot. cat /dev/random >/dev/hda will really scramble things but it will take a long time to go over the whole disk. There'll be no partition table afterwards either. > > Also what of shredders? There is one in the gnome desktop, how does it work? > Does it follow the blocks in the inode table and overwrite with garbage or > whatever? If I were to write software like this, do I need to run it as a > kernel module? Can I do it entirely in C by dereferencing pointers? I am > still a bit of an amateur with assembly language. Should be doable as a user mode application if you take this approach:- rename the file write random data over it several (maybe a dozen) times delete the file If the file was ever larger that it was when you deleted it you've got a problem though, there's probably no way to find out those excess blocks that were once used. > And the software that recovers deleted files that the police use etc, know > any programmes like this? Never needed it myself. -- ---<GRiP>--- Web: www.arcadia.au.com/gripz Phone/fax: 02 4950 1194 Mobile: 0408 686 201 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
