Wiping the hard drive is a necessity to avoid any chance of having personal data retrieved after you sell or dispose of your hard drive. The following procedures use the Live Linux CD Knoppix to wipe a hard drive.
- Boot into Knoppix.
- Start the "Terminal" window.
- Display a list of hard drivers currently on your system. It should be sdX or hdX where X is a letter.
# sudo sfdisk -l -x - Start the wiping process.
# sudo shred -vfz -n 100 /dev/sdX - Let the program run to completion (can be several hours).
References:
- Knoppix is a Live Linux CD based on Linux GNU/Linux
http://knoppix.net/ - How to Use Knoppix to Wipe a Hard Drive
http://www.ehow.com/how_6246449_use-knoppix-wipe-hard-drive.html - shred - overwrite a file to hide its contents, and optionally delete it
http://linux.die.net/man/1/shred
