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Questions tagged [secure-erase]

Secure erase is the practice of erasing content in such a way that it cannot be (easily) restored.

Secure erasing refers to the practices of erasing data in such a way that they can not be recovered at a later stage. Various tools, such as shred and bleachbit may be used to achieve this.

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Securely erase hard drive using the Disk Utility

I am planning on selling my laptop. So I formatted my disk using the Disk Utility and chose to overwrite the disk with zeroes. Two questions: Is this the same as overwriting the disk using dd? sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda And is this method…
Stefan van den Akker
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How can I completely erase all data on a (micro) SD card?

I just got a micro sd card that I plan on using with the Raspberry Pi. I used the KDE partition manager to delete the original partition on the card and to write a new 12GiB ext4 partition. After doing this, the card still says that 6% of it, 30.02…
firephyz96
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How to securely wipe files from SSD drive?

When trying to securely wipe SSDs, we have several problems: SSDs wear out after a limited amount of erase cycles SSDs have a controller that dynamically maps LBAs (logical block addresses used by the system to access the disk) to NVRAM cells (the…
Byte Commander
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I need to run a security erase tool on my drive

I downloaded Hirens Boot CD and it just stops and says "No PXE" or similar. So that is obviously a stumbling block and I can't afford to keep downloading on the basis that it may be a bad download. I just don't have the data allowance. So anyone…
Mark Giblin
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Where are ALL ubuntu logs/terminal history stored

In what folders are the logs and key histories stored so that I may make a script to purge them. Is there a specific folder for the hibernation partition or a file by which it keeps the RAM data on hibernate? Is someone wanted to get rid of all…
The Umbraic Light
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What happens when I use 'dd' to overwrite the disk from which Ubuntu is running?

What would happen if I use sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda from an Ubuntu install running from /dev/sda? I tried it in a VM, and it appears to correctly have wiped the disk. Will this be the case every time? Is this a secure way to "wipe" an…
Jonas Czech
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How to securely erase hard drive with ubuntu live cd?

I want to sell my old SSD on EBay. How do I prepare the hard drive to protect my personal data and get the hard drive in a good shape using an Ubuntu live cd?
ThreeCheeseHigh
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Is there a GUI program to securely delete files and folders?

I see there's a lot of info in the answers to this question. I have used such CLI commands added to the context menu of the file manager (mostly Thunar's custom actions, which I favour over Nautilus, while I am in Xfce). What I want here is a GUI…
user47206
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How to know the progress of sfill free space wiping process?

I want to wipe free space in my ubuntu partition and after a search found this sfill software which I installed using sudo apt install secure-delete Then I have used this command to wipe free space $ sudo sfill -v /home [sudo] password for shan:…
Eka
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Is it insecure to to have a password on the clipboard?

So I've been using truecrypt for several years now. About 6 months ago before I learned off my password (it was really long and I didn't want it vulnerable to word-lists) I used to copy and paste it from a text file. I don't have swap space enabled…
Ben Dover
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GUI tool to securely overwrite whole hard drive

My friend has a Windows laptop that we want to totally wipe and then turn over to a hardware technician (whom we don't trust with the data on the hard drive.) I want to securely wipe, rather than encrypt the drive. I'll boot Ubuntu from a pendrive.…
Fiksdal
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secure erase with hdparm - can still see file content

I downloaded latest stable Ubuntu (ubuntu-16.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso image that I double checked for authenticity) and used it to boot my new Win10 system which I wanted to wipe. I followed the instructions, like those…
Justin
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How can I shred all disks but /dev/sda and log the output to a file?

I'm trying to make one command that will take all drives that are not sda and run shred on them and dump the output to a log file. So far I have find /dev/ -name "sd?" -not -name "sda" -exec [shred -fvz {} >…
Ben Stumpf
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How to use BleachBit to remove completely any selected file or folder?

The BleachBit website states that the program can "Overwrite specific files found anywhere on the hard drive". Can I select a file and shred it with BB or do I have to delete it first the normal way and then wipe the empty space to avoid recovery? I…
user47206
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What is the difference between the -f and -l options of secure-delete srm?

Regarding the secure-delete command in Linux, what is the difference between srm -f, srm -l and srm -fl ? Which is fastest? Which is most secure?
EricVonB
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