On Wednesday 16 December 2009 23:24:51 Marcus Wanner wrote:
> On 12/16/2009 2:24 PM, Mick wrote:
> > On Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:49:07 Grant wrote:
> >> I'm about to sell my old laptop and I'd like to wipe out the data and
> >> install any flavor of Linux via USB (the CD drive doesn't work any
> >> more).  I've got a bootable USB key that will get me into Gentoo.  How
> >> would you take it from there?  I'm looking for something quick and
> >> easy.  My data isn't too sensitive, but I'd like to do some type of
> >> wiping so it isn't all just sitting there with a deleted flag or
> >> however that works.
> >
> > First I'd mount the partitions and then emerge/use shred:
> >
> > # shred -v -n 25 -z -u /mnt/a_partition
> >
> > Then I would delete old partitions, create new partitions and format them
> > as required.  If you're really paranoid about your data (which from what
> > you're telling me you're not) you can also use dd to randomly overwrite
> > partition tables, but I would probably not bother.
> >
> > Now, there may be more modern tools to do all this with a single button,
> > but I haven't looked into it in any detail.
> >
> > HTH.
> 
> What's wrong with "dd if=/dev/zero of/dev/sdxx"?

Nothing, I also mentioned dd.  Both are equally effective (or less so on 
journaled fs).  shred has the -n option for multiple overwrites.

-- 
Regards,
Mick