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Is there any light utility that can format the whole disk including OS drive?
I need to erase sensitive data after using the machine.
Stan
Posted 2011-02-18T21:15:24.040
Reputation: 6 535
How do I format the whole disk after using my machine?
Answers
6
Tamara Wijsman
Posted 2011-02-18T21:15:24.040
Reputation: 54 163
2If the data has been removed from the system and the OP just needs to make sure it can't be recovered, SDelete or the built-in cipher tool will do the job. Also, a full format on Vista/7 will erase the entire drive. – afrazier – 2011-02-18T21:44:18.023
1
Boot from a USB or CD with a Live version of Ubuntu and install "gparted" on it. From there you will see a graphical representation of the disk and delete partitions or the whole drive as necessary.
sudo apt-get install gparted
sudo gparted
Please reply to this post if it worked for you or not.
UPDATE: Found a much easier way to do it, just download and burn a CD with the gparted .iso
paradd0x
Posted 2011-02-18T21:15:24.040
Reputation: 7 771
1
Seagate actually has one of the simplest self booting diagnostic tools. Seatools can do simple erases or write all 0's format. This would not guarantee professional recovery techs couldn't recover some or most data, however it far outperforms simple formats. If you want to securely erase the drive a multi pass program that meets DoD standards will eliminate this probability but will not be fast.
Chris - Armor-IT
Posted 2011-02-18T21:15:24.040
Reputation: 761
0
You could use something like ghost this could restore your hard drive to a previous state such as a roll back in vmware, it takes about 5 to 7 min and it can be open source. It can be done by the network as well.
xabe
Posted 2011-02-18T21:15:24.040
Reputation: 11
Multiple destructive writes with
– oKtosiTe – 2011-02-18T22:05:29.470badblocksshould do the trick. Runningbadblocks -swv /dev/sdafrom a Linux live CD would destroy all data on the primary drive on most systems.