48
What are common tools on Linux to wipe an HDD pre RMA?
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
48 points (96.2% liked)
Linux
49166 readers
655 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
If the drive has bad sectors that it can't read right now, it likely had other sectors that were marginal and got copied (remapped) to new spare sectors before they became unreadable. So there is still potentially recoverable data in the remapped sectors, and not much you can do about it.
Basically, writing zeros to the disk is about as good as you can hope for. If your data is s00per seekrit to the point where you can't stand the possibility of any bits at all being recovered, you basically have to melt the drive. Otherwise, zero it and send it in.
Next time, set up encryption ahead of time, so your new drives never see plaintext. Some drives have a "secure erase" feature that is basically a crappy version of this built into the drive.