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Possible Duplicates:
Erasing data before selling a computer
How to wipe a USB hard drive

Hi guys!

I have internal and external hard drives. I don't want to have to go through and delete each one manually. I don't have that kind of spare time. Do you know about some tested software or something?

thanks a lot. I have windows 7.

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Brock
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2 Answers2

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  • Bootable CD: DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke).
  • Alternatively, a bootable Linux CD with the program 'wipe'. That one would be more complex to use though, as you are more familiar with Windows.

I assume that you don't want any of the data on those drives, EVER again. If that is not the case, these are the wrong tools.

Slartibartfast
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  • Also a simple `dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sdX` works quiet well for deleting *everything* (including the partition table) on the drive. If you want it clean and nice afterwards you can use `dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/sdX`. – Bobby Jun 22 '10 at 07:05
  • Having used (or attempted to) your method, you will find it absurdly slow. I would be surprised if you wiped a gig before the week was out. /dev/random only uses real entropy. You run out of entropy really fast. /dev/urandom is better. It will keep going at a moderate clip but drain all of your CPU generating cryptographic random numbers. I suggest a combination of wiping and random numbers (which is what DBAN and wipe do), but if you are cleaning it against an unsophisticated attacker, dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ would work fine. (/dev/null doesn't output anything, use /dev/zero) – Slartibartfast Jun 23 '10 at 02:48
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Do you want to continue to be able to use these drives?

If not, a large hammer is the fastest solution.

Fake Name
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