SUMMARY: How to really kill a disk before retirement?

From: Copeland KCK, Rich <Rich.Copeland.KCK_at_gentiva.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:48:31 -0600

*** Original Message/Request ***

Tru64 Admins ... your opinion please ...

To fully eradicate a disk before retirement my memory wants me to think that the command:

# diskx -f /dev/disk/disk0c -w -pattern 99

will do the trick, anyone have any other ideas or will confirm this plan please.

Regards,
 
Rich Copeland KCK

Rich.Copeland.KCK_at_gentiva.com

*** Thank you for your opinion ***

Dr. Thomas Blinn
Alan Rollow
Rick Kelly
Phillip Brown
S Thangavelu
John Lanier

*** Solution chosen ***

# man zeero
Reformatting page. Please wait ... completed

zeero(8) zeero(8)

NAME

  zeero - Zero out disks prior to rewrite.

SYNOPSIS

  /usr/lbin/zeero [-d] [-f] device

OPTIONS

  -d Specifies diagnostic mode. Prints the total number of writes and the
      exit errno. An exit status of errno 28 indicates success; zeros were
      written until the device ran out of space.

  -f Specifies silent mode. This option does not prompt for a response. If
      the -f option is not used, the user is warned that all data will be
      erased from /dev/rdisk/dsk?? and asked for an affirmative response
      before continuing.

DESCRIPTION

  The zeero command writes zeros throughout a disk partition including the
  disk label. You must be super user to use this command.

EXAMPLES

   1. In the following example, the zeero command is used to overwrite par-
       tition a with zeros.
            /usr/lbin/zeero /dev/rdisk/dsk1a

   2. In the following example, the zeero command is used to overwrite the
       entire disk with zeros.
            /usr/lbin/zeero /dev/rdisk/dsk0c

FILES

  /usr/lbin/zeero


#
# /usr/lbin/zeero -d /dev/rdisk/dsk5c


******** W A R N I N G ********

This program will completely erase all data on /dev/rdisk/dsk5c.

Are you sure you want to do this (y/n): y

Cleaning /dev/rdisk/dsk5c.....number of writes = 555544, errno = 28
done.

#
# dd if=/dev/rdisk/dsk5c
dd: 71109623+0 records in.
dd: 71109623+0 records out.
#
<nothing was returned>
#
# disklabel -r dsk5
  disklabel: Disk /dev/rdisk/dsk5c is unlabeled
#

If I were to guess I think zeero is doing a:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk/dsk5c

underneath.

*** Other solutions were offered; however this one seems to be adequate for our requirements.
Received on Tue Feb 17 2004 - 15:51:00 NZDT

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