[CentOS] erase disk

[zGreenfelder]

On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 3:33 PM, John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com> wrote:

> On 9/26/2013 11:30 AM, Phil Dobbin wrote:
> > I have a CentOS server (a Dell 860) with two drives in it.
> >
> > One is running CentOS 6.4 which I want to keep & the bigger 400GB drive
> > has Debian 7 on it which I want to erase & use for backups.
> >
> > Which is the best way to go about achieving my intended goal? The Debian
> > drive is not mounted when Centos is booted.
>
> this 400GB drive is /dev/sdb ?
>
> as root...
> fdisk /dev/sdb
>           and delete all partitions, create a new linux partition thats
> the full size of the disk, exit fdisk.
> mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
> mkdir /backups
>
> edit /etc/fstab and add a line to the bottom like:
> /dev/sdb1    /backups     ext3   defaults    1 2
>
> now, mount /backups
>
> voila, done.  your backups will be mounted as /backups when you reboot.
>

I think this question is asking everyone to make lots of assumptions about
your hardware config.   I tend to agree with Mr. Pierce above (again,
assuming you have 2 separate  physical drives and not some sort of weird
LVM or Hardware raid in the mix).   if you're going to repurpose the drive
to backups within the same machine, going to the effort of running 7 pass
DOD graded disk wipe utils seems to me at best kinda dumb and very wasteful
for time, at worse it'll take more life off an old disk.   then again,
there's assuming in that answer, too.

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