[CentOS] Wiping USB drives

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 4/14/07, centos at 911networks.com <centos at 911networks.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a dozen of drives, ranging from 10Gb to 200Gb. I want to
> wipe them clean before donating them. I have a IDE/SATA to USB
> converter that works. I can see the drives properly.
>

Ok depending on the type of data on the disks and the types of disks,
you can do the following:

If the data on the drives was very sensitive data for your
agency/company/etc.. the best methods are complete destruction of the
drive. physically shredding the drive into 1 cm x 1 cm pieces is a
good idea for size of shredding

If the drive was sensitive and people would spend 10,000 to try and
recover.. destroy the disk.

If the drive was sensitive but nothing that people would spend more
than $1000 to try and recover...

use an approved shredder by your companies lawyers..  The type of wipe
normally does a complete wipe with binary 1's, 0's, 10's and 01's to
try and make sure that magnetic resonance is not found.

If the drive was something that had data that people wouldnt spend
more than 100 to try and recover..

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/drive bs=1024
<wait for it>

flash/memorystick drives cache various stuff and are usually cheaper
to destroy than deal with unless the data is

> DBAN does not currently support external USB drive. Any other
> alternatives?
>
> --
> Thanks
> http://www.911networks.com
> When the network has to work
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>


-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"