Talk:Securely wipe disk

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Latest comment: 25 June 2020 by Mb720 in topic Sight data

wipe script to test

My wipe disk scripts body is completely done, any one can add own wiping patterns there now or uncomment some of existing. - Andy Crowd 17:02, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I have had no opportunity to test it yet, but maybe others do/did. I'm moving your comment linking to the script to a new talk item with this edit, so that we can remove the closed discussion (Talk:Securely wipe disk#Wrong Description.3F) which mainly focussed on the existing article content. --Indigo (talk) 13:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have improved the script code and added safety checks, it will not wipe device if it has at least one partition mounted and will wipe only if selected partition is not mounted.
Still waiting for feed back if it is OK to have it in AUR and write about it on main page. If it is "safe"/stable/good enough to be used. I could not find which package the keywait utility belongs to, but I used it in my script to show a warning that it must be edited first, to uncomment a wiping pattern and adjust settings if necessary.
Andy Crowd - 蔡依林 21:46, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
Created as a new project, added options and will write a man page for it wipe-safe. It will do checks for mounted partitions to avoid damaging of the system but they can be disabled or do less checks before starting. It is still under development (want to find possible new options and improve the code) but it is ready to be used and tested.
(Andy Crowd - 蔡依林 21:42, 24 April 2016 (UTC)).

I don't know where to put info about "hdparm" to disable cache

Here is an article about hdparm on Ubuntu page hdparm disable disk cache. On Arch wiki is written on multiple pages about hdparm but not about disable write cache or writing direct to disk. May be it can be written here and describe utilities that has support for direct write to disk. hdparm has own configuration and dd has option oflag=direct that is often used when wiping disks or I am wrong? (Andy Crowd - 蔡依林 20:28, 3 May 2016 (UTC)).

No, you are not wrong. For the link: You could open a new subsection in Hdparm#Tips_and_tricks to explain it, but it is just one of the options hdparm can be used to configure and, usually, these are drive bios/vendor dependant - just adding it like that without a particular case should not be done because the chance of problems for particular drives is high with such config items. In general the drive cache should be cleared with sync instructions, so a drive which does secure erase properly (Securely_wipe_disk#hdparm) will flush cache anyhow.
--Indigo (talk) 11:34, 4 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I will add hdparm on it's article in Tips&Tricks after I will find a harddrive that is safe to crash and do tests on for having possible output that can be used on wiki. But it will be only about disabling cache and I also must find a hdparm.conf examples of all options that can be used there to have as reference (only a link from wiki to that page). (Andy Crowd - 蔡依林 19:52, 5 May 2016 (UTC)).
Sure, if you want to play with options, better with a harddrive that does not contain essential data. Disabling drive cache should have a negative performance impact for throughput. I think the reason behind that linked article, to prevent data corruption in case of power failure, is valid to use the option (if your external power supply is unstable). But we all know from experience (from hard shutdowns in case of kernel locks, for example) that best first safeguard is to use a journaled filesystem for starters, you should mention that if you add a tip for it. --Indigo (talk) 09:45, 6 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sight data

The section on flash memory contains the expression "sight data". I don't know what kind of data that is. Can we clarify that or replace the expression with something else? —This unsigned comment is by Mb720 (talk) 14:32, 25 June 2020 (UTC). Please sign your posts with ~~~~!Reply[reply]