Hi,

I'm in need of a method for wiping a disk (can be scsi 9.1 - 146gb) 
thats internal.  I guess there's a trade off between speed and security, 
anyone got any ideas..

Cheers

me wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm in need of a method for wiping a disk (can be scsi 9.1 - 146gb) 
> thats internal.  I guess there's a trade off between speed and security, 
> anyone got any ideas..
> 
> Cheers


How good does the wipe have to be??

Using format and the surface analysis tool therein will do a pretty good 
job.  If the disk is chock full of kiddy porn or terrorist training 
manuals or other material of interest to the CIA, NSA, or FBI, you'll 
need something better; e.g. slag it down with an oxy-acetelene torch!
If anybody is willing to spend enough time and money things can be 
recovered from the disk unless destruction is total.

Assuming that you do not want to take the ultimate (MOD) action for 
secret disks i.e. complete destruction, but want to preserve them for 
future use it is indeed a trade off between security and speed.
You could if security is not that great an issue, use "newfs" thus 
creating a new filesystem. If you need to wipe to JS 440, then this will 
take a great deal of time for disks of that size. I can supply a  "C" 
proggy to do this if you have a few days to spare.

Mail me on dk@corfe-castle.demon.co.uk if interested.

Les.

me wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm in need of a method for wiping a disk (can be scsi 9.1 - 146gb) 
> thats internal.  I guess there's a trade off between speed and security, 
> anyone got any ideas..
> 
> Cheers

L$s Hayward wrote:
> Assuming that you do not want to take the ultimate (MOD) action for 
> secret disks i.e. complete destruction, but want to preserve them for 
> future use it is indeed a trade off between security and speed.
> You could if security is not that great an issue, use "newfs" thus 
> creating a new filesystem. If you need to wipe to JS 440, then this will 
> take a great deal of time for disks of that size. I can supply a  "C" 
> proggy to do this if you have a few days to spare.
> 
> Mail me on dk@corfe-castle.demon.co.uk if interested.
> 
> Les.
> 
> me wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm in need of a method for wiping a disk (can be scsi 9.1 - 146gb) 
>> thats internal.  I guess there's a trade off between speed and 
>> security, anyone got any ideas..
>>
>> Cheers
> 
Thanks for the offer, I guess making one slice for the whole disk and 
then creating a FS on that slice will do, but will take some time on 
146gb disks.

Cheers
Paul

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:18:21 +0100,
me <me@here.com>, in
<D6mdndnjfaJwoPXbRVnyhAA@pipex.net> wrote:

>+  I'm in need of a method for wiping a disk (can be scsi 9.1 - 146gb) 
>+  thats internal.  I guess there's a trade off between speed and security, 
>+  anyone got any ideas..

There are multiple approaches. Someone has mentioned "format" and
"physically destroy the disk" approaches. Personally, I'm more
inclined to use "dd" or "shred" [1] if I can't boot up Darik's Boot
and Nuke cd-rom (or floppy, or USB storage device) [2], and [2]
includes links to additional products that do similiar wiping. A pity
it boots only intel machines. But you have multiple algorithms to
choose from [3].

For work, where I'm required to securely wipe disks before I ship old
unloved machines off to Surplus, I have an ancient Pentium II with a
couple of SCSI controllers, so I can pretty much wipe any combination
of IDE/SCSI drives as long as I can physically remove them from their
host. Then I can boot from the cd-rom and wack 'em all.


[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/fileutils/doc/manual/html/fileutils.html#shred%20invocation

[2] http://dban.sourceforge.net/

[3] http://dban.sourceforge.net/features.html

-- 
Consulting Minister for Consultants, DNRC
I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow
isn't looking good, either.
I am BOFH. Resistance is futile. Your network will be assimilated.

me wrote:
> L$s Hayward wrote:
>> Assuming that you do not want to take the ultimate (MOD) action for 
>> secret disks i.e. complete destruction, but want to preserve them for 
>> future use it is indeed a trade off between security and speed.
>> You could if security is not that great an issue, use "newfs" thus 
>> creating a new filesystem. If you need to wipe to JS 440, then this 
>> will take a great deal of time for disks of that size. I can supply a  
>> "C" proggy to do this if you have a few days to spare.
>>
>> Mail me on dk@corfe-castle.demon.co.uk if interested.
>>
>> Les.
>>
>> me wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm in need of a method for wiping a disk (can be scsi 9.1 - 146gb) 
>>> thats internal.  I guess there's a trade off between speed and 
>>> security, anyone got any ideas..
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>
> Thanks for the offer, I guess making one slice for the whole disk and 
> then creating a FS on that slice will do, but will take some time on 
> 146gb disks.

10 minutes or so... But the format analyze thing is better on destroying 
data. Don't think there are anyone that succeds in reading data back 
after that. Keep in mind tha the data forensics are all used to and have 
tools for FAT/NTFS stuff. Most of them wouldn't have a clue given a 
undestroyed UFS, or even harder ZFS, disk.

"me" <me@here.com> wrote in message
news:D6mdndnjfaJwoPXbRVnyhAA@pipex.net...
> Hi,
>
> I'm in need of a method for wiping a disk (can be scsi 9.1 - 146gb)
> thats internal.  I guess there's a trade off between speed and security,
> anyone got any ideas..
>
> Cheers

format -> analyze -> set

# passes = 10
random patterns = yes

quit -> format

It won't be fast, but it'll wipe the disk as well as find any bad blocks.
With > 7 passes of different bit patterns there is little chance any useful
data will be there.

Trinean

I R A Darth Aggie wrote:
> On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:18:21 +0100,
> me <me@here.com>, in
> <D6mdndnjfaJwoPXbRVnyhAA@pipex.net> wrote:

> For work, where I'm required to securely wipe disks before I ship old
> unloved machines off to Surplus, I have an ancient Pentium II with a
> couple of SCSI controllers, so I can pretty much wipe any combination
> of IDE/SCSI drives as long as I can physically remove them from their
> host. Then I can boot from the cd-rom and wack 'em all.

Good man. I bought a s/hand disk on Ebay once and just out of interest 
tried to mount it up. To my surprise it was completely untouched and 
contained users personal emails, credit card info, share dealing info 
and a complete operating system! Being a good bloke, I informed the 
sysadmin whose address was on the disk. I understand that heads were 
about to roll...

Les.

L$s Hayward wrote:
> 
> 
> I R A Darth Aggie wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:18:21 +0100,
>> me <me@here.com>, in
>> <D6mdndnjfaJwoPXbRVnyhAA@pipex.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> For work, where I'm required to securely wipe disks before I ship old
>> unloved machines off to Surplus, I have an ancient Pentium II with a
>> couple of SCSI controllers, so I can pretty much wipe any combination
>> of IDE/SCSI drives as long as I can physically remove them from their
>> host. Then I can boot from the cd-rom and wack 'em all.
> 
> 
> Good man. I bought a s/hand disk on Ebay once and just out of interest 
> tried to mount it up. To my surprise it was completely untouched and 
> contained users personal emails, credit card info, share dealing info 
> and a complete operating system! Being a good bloke, I informed the 
> sysadmin whose address was on the disk. I understand that heads were 
> about to roll...
> 
> Les.
> 

The problem is universal!  I bought a used DEC Alphastation 600.  It 
arrived with an O/S installed, Licenses for the VMS operating system, C 
compiler and other stuff plus the file they used to subvert license 
checking!  It was formerly the property of a well known aircraft company 
working out of Seattle!

I sometimes pick up PCs left at curbside if they're not hopelessly old 
and salvage the disk drives.  I've got a collection of disks with 
licensed copies of software. . . .