[CentOS] erase disk

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

SilverTip257 wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 7:11 AM, mark <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote:
>> On 09/26/13 18:32, Bret Taylor wrote:
>> > Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> I've never seen the need for a seven-pass randomization. If pressed,
>> >> I'd probably agree that a one-pass zeroing is good enough for just
>> >> about any situation. Asset retirement isn't a time-sensitive task,
>> >> however, so I always use a three-pass randomization before it heads
>> >> out the door.
>> >
>> > You all realize that dban only offers 3 passes, unless you pay for it,

> That's only if you just use the "autonuke" option.
> Press F[234] to check out the other boot options.
>
>> > right? DBAN is easy, that's why I recommended it.
>>
>> Um, no. It offers DoD 5220.22-M, which it *says* is seven passes, and
<snip>
>> seen that it is. And we normally use a disk until a) it dies, or b) the
>> server it's in dies, and then reuse, or, more likely, sits around until
>> we consider it too small.... On top of which, I *do* need to guarantee
that
>> it's clean, as I noted originally. I have *zero* intention of winding up
>> in a news story about someone buying an old surplussed server, and finding
>> all *sorts* of interesting data on the h/d in it.
>
> At a former place of employment we would simply not leave hard drives in
> servers or desktops that were intended to be recycled or junked.  The hard
> drives got disposed of separately (in this case crushed with a hydraulic
> wedge).

Hah! When we have one that's failed, it gets deGaussed here. (Except for
old, 1.5x height SCSI drives, for which they "don't have a frame". Then we
unscrew the thing, and disassemble, and have cool magnets, and pretty
disks (which we can bend, or hit with a hammer).

     mark