[clug-talk] Alternatives to DBAN

[Hendrik Schaink]

Further to Gustin's recommendation, make sure to turn _off_
write-caching to the RAID cluster before issuing the _shred_ command.
i.e. # hdparm -W0 /dev/s...
Otherwise the write-cache will just commit the latest write and ignore
previous ones, thwarting all efforts to securely erase the platters.

HTH, Hendrik

Gustin Johnson wrote:
> 
> I have had a couple of machines where DBAN did not recognize the
> controller.  What I usually do in those cases is to boot from a Ubuntu,
> Knoppix, or systemrescuecd live media (CD/DVD/USB pendrive etc) and do
> the following as root:
> 
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<target> && dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/<target>
> 
> You could always use the shred util included in most of those previously
> mentioned live distros, I usually use the "-n 3" flag which limits shred
> to 3 passes.  Its default of 25 takes a really long time.