I am fairly new to Linux but all I can say is I love it!!! :D Anyways, I am trying to securely erase 1000s of files from my harddrive because new year is approaching and I want a fresh start to life. As in remove toxic files, toxic photos etc I am currently using the Linux wipe command as in sudo wipe -rcfbut it is taking FOREVER. I believe because it is doing a wipe 34 times according to Guttmans Algorithm. I appreciate it is good but are there any quicker alternatives that are safe deletion. I am new to it all as in cyber security but I learnt worrying enough that doing the rm command on Linux or even permanently deleting from Windows recycle bin isn't safe and is still recoverable as it just hides the files. Hell I am recovering old files haha of my younger self

man shred warns that the command is not useful on file systems that don't overwrite in-place. I don't have much knowledge about the current and up and coming file systems, but I would suspect that many of them support some special in-place write mode for this purpose, which is used by shred. Am I right with this assumption? Is it already implemented in shred? Is there some way of telling without too much trouble (e.g. when a new file system is announced)?

On at least three Lenovo Laptops, many keys no longer work following the use of the shred command. 1. I used a bootable Ubuntu USB key. Within the Ubuntu OS, in the terminal window: - sudo fdisk -l - sudo shred -n10 -v /dev/nvme0n1 2. Shred runs its course. 3. I then install Windows (10) Then oddly enough, the keyboard doesn't work (many keys are completely non-functional). * In the BIOS, the keyboard works fine. * The hard drive is an NVMe. How can Ubuntu's shred result in our keyboards not working?

I have a find command that I exec to shred and it works great; however, I need to capture the output of this and pass to a variable or a file. I have tried so many iterations of the below commands, but cant seem to get it to work. I also have tried for loops. It always will display to my terminal as it goes through the shred process, but never writes to a file or variable. I would prefer a variable but will take anything at this point. Please see my examples below: **Original find command:** find /burncd/working -type f -exec shred -v -n7 -z --remove {} \; **Latest try at a command to pass to a file (from StackExchange):** find /burncd/working/* -type f -exec bash -c 'shred -v -n7 -z --remove "$1" /tmp/find.out' $0 {} \; I would appreciate any help you could give.

I used -vfz and it shows the size and percentage of current wiped amount, but I would like to see the remaining time. I think I can calculate time myself, because it seems that it wipes about 630 MB per second, but automatic calculation would be nice.

I m looking for best and fastest way to remove all my data From hard drive. I M on linux Of you know something with doing this operation on a USB stick share with me. Other ways are also acceptable Anything quick Best regards

I'm going to securely erase the data on a HDD so that I can donate it. I use shred which is a specialized the tool for this puprose. So I run shred -vfz /dev/sdd1 and it does its job: shred: /dev/sdd1: pass 1/4 (random)... shred: /dev/sdd1: pass 1/4 (random)...652MiB/932GiB 0% shred: /dev/sdd1: pass 1/4 (random)...1,2GiB/932GiB 0% shred: /dev/sdd1: pass 1/4 (random)...1,8GiB/932GiB 0% shred: /dev/sdd1: pass 1/4 (random)...2,5GiB/932GiB 0% However it is painfully slow. After an hour or so, it still could not finish the first pass on a 1TB HDD. So I'm wondering what is the quicker way to do so without compromizing the security of data removal? P.S. I know that it also can be done using: dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdd1 bs=4k But I'm wondering what will be the differnce in terms of security and speed.

When used, with -n0 (that is without the three initial random passes of the default option) the **shred command is usually fast at zeroing hard drives**: shred -n0 -z -v -f /dev/sdb However, I observed that **with some models, the shred command is extremely slow at zeroing**. **Example** (enterprise grade) model: **ST31000340NS** (Seagate Barracuda ES.2, 1TB 7.2krpm, 32MB cache, SATA II). Erase commands and observed speeds for the ST31000340NS hard drive: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb status=progress ~ 18-25 MB/s ddrescue -n -r0 -v -f /dev/zero /dev/sdb ~ 38 MB/s shred -n0 -z -v -f /dev/sdb ~ 9 MB/s (~35 MB every 4 seconds) We see that shred, although performing unique pass of zeros is here more than 4x slower than ddrescue. Also, for this case, dd is surprisingly twice slower than ddrescue. How to explain such differences in speed?

short question: as the title suggests, a system-wide shred instead of the command rm Long question: I know about the "replace" command, as well as I could just to rm = shred (or something on those lines) but i thought - How would I go around by replacing **ALL** sort of **Remove** commands/calls in Linux to shred instead? Like, not only in CLI - but in GUI (E.g with Thunar as well, instead of deleting or empty recycle bin, Thunar would shred the file (first I guess) (then, maybe send it to recycle bin or just delete it right in there) Note, when I say replace in overall Linux - I mean for every program/cli/command - which removes/deletes a file (**OR a Directory by the way, e.g recursively**). If this is possible obviously. Thanks! //Hope all is well with you all. As usual, if I have made a mistake somewhere, (not only grammar - but anything else) please, do not hesitate to edit. (Even if you are unsure!) or ask for clarification/details. Off topic below. + a side-question (if this is allowed!) How can I tell the "review" program (that reviews a question before it is posted) to review it again? **NOTE** this is more of a hack than a solution; I have made a LKM that hooks any "normal" del command and replaces it with a "shred" command; but as said this is more a ""hack"" not an actual, solution. this is on a test machine by the way, it's too risky to actually use. and yes it does look like a rootkit someone pointed out :)

I used shred to wipe my external hard disk: sudo shred -vz /dev/sdb I should also add that the disk had 5 bad sectors. I want to verify the disk has been zeroed, per https://superuser.com/questions/1510233/is-there-a-faster-way-to-verify-that-a-drive-has-been-fully-zeroed I'm not that familiar with dd, but I *believe* that these show it's been zeroed:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb status=progress | hexdump
0000000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
*
5000916670976 bytes (5.0 TB, 4.5 TiB) copied, 45754 s, 109 MB/s
9767541167+0 records in
9767541167+0 records out
5000981077504 bytes (5.0 TB, 4.5 TiB) copied, 45756.7 s, 109 MB/s
48c61b35e00

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb status=progress | od | head
5000952267264 bytes (5.0 TB, 4.5 TiB) copied, 45739 s, 109 MB/s
9767541167+0 records in
9767541167+0 records out
5000981077504 bytes (5.0 TB, 4.5 TiB) copied, 45741.1 s, 109 MB/s
0000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
*
110614154657000

But using a simple cmp shows an exception:

sudo cmp /dev/zero /dev/sdb
cmp: EOF on /dev/sdb after byte 5000981077504, in line 1

Has the disk been zeroed?

Linux has shred, from the GNU coreutils package, to securely overwrite data in-place when removing files. What is the equivalent on BSD systems (and specifically on macOS)?

I used the "shred" command on Linux to wipe a specific partition on my HDD (just a once-over with zeroes; no extra passes of random data). The command I used: shred -uvz -n 0 /dev/sda But once it completed the shredding, the disk appeared to have transformed into one homogeneous raw partition that can't be mounted. The Ubuntu disk utility reads "Contents Unknown" when the device is selected. I also gave the HDD a look using dskmgmt on Windows to get some additional perspective. It gives the following message: "You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it." Any idea about what happened? This was a big shred, by the way. I shredded 2.6 TB of a 3.6 TB HDD. Is my HDD toast, or the data on my HDD toast? I do have a backup of just about everything on the HDD on a SSD, so the situation is not dire. But if I could save the disk contents somehow, that would be really nice. I understand that there is recovery software but I wanted to reach out to the community for some advice: perhaps there is a simpler fix, or perhaps I could get a recommendation of recovery softawre to use? Thanks for the help. PS There were multiple partitions on the HDD (e.g. sda1, sda 4). So I did not inadvertently shred the whole thing. Also, as it was shredding, I could see in the terminal that the total size to be shredded was the expected size -- only 2.6 of the 3.6 TB. --- Hmmm... okay. Before I shredded the thing, I was thinking the same thing: "isn't sda the whole device?" But when I was looking at the partitions on the Disk Utility one was labeled sda0 another sda1 etc. and then the partition I wanted to shred was simply labeled sda. I wonder why that would be the case. Perhaps because it was simply unformatted space on the drive and not a partition proper? (I can't remember whether or not I formatted the space prior to shredding.)

Whenever I sold a drive I've zeroed it once with shred from a live environment: sudo shred -vzn 0 /dev/sdX Before I double-checked it wasn't mounted. This is the fastest way to securely erase a drive I know of. Now I've heard it's bad for SSDs. Is there a way to securely erase an SSD that's as fast or faster? From a theoretical standpoint I understand that you need to overwrite the whole volume in order to make recovery impossible. So I don't see how there's a way that would put less strain on a SSD. I was told a single pass won't decrease a SSD's life span at all. Would cat /dev/zero > /dev/sdX be as fast? I'm not dealing with sensitive data here and don't need to protect the drive from a knowledgeable person going to great length to recover data. Fast is what I need while not decreasing the SSD's life span. Edit: would this work for a SSD just like for a HDD? dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdc bs=1M count=2

I got to know about shred yesterday. I want to know the proper way of removing files with it.
Should I first shred the file and then use rm to remove it? > **$**shred > **$**rm Or should I just use the shred command with the -u option? >**$**shred -u
**Which of these is better? :)**

1. Magnetic drive has failed. 2. I used ddrescue to recover ~85% of it, with a map file, but the rest is borked and continuing to scrub it would take years. 3. I can return it for a replacement. 4. I'd like to shred my data first. 5. When I try to write to it, it works for the first few hundred MB but then starts pouring input/output errors and the drive becomes completely unavailable (/dev/sdd no longer exists). So is it possible to use the map file from item 2 to write random data only to the portions of the drive that were recoverable and not attempt to write to the bad blocks?

Shred command was interrupted by a unrelated and user induced system halt. Now I'm not able to see the harddisk using lsblk -l. Tried on multiple linux systems. This answer (from External HDD detected, but not recognised. Cannot mount, cannot format, cannot do partition ) points to external power which I doubt as cause since I was able to shred in first place. journalctl -b Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb 1-1.1.4: new high-speed USB device number 7 using ehci-pci Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb 1-1.1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=174c, idProduct=55aa, bcdDevice= 1.00 Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb 1-1.1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1 Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb 1-1.1.4: Product: ASMT1051 Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb 1-1.1.4: Manufacturer: asmedia Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb 1-1.1.4: SerialNumber: 123456789012 Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb-storage 1-1.1.4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usb-storage 1-1.1.4:1.0: Quirks match for vid 174c pid 55aa: 400000 Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: scsi host6: usb-storage 1-1.1.4:1.0 Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage Nov 03 15:48:44 x kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver uas Nov 03 15:48:45 x kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access ASMT 2105 0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 Nov 03 15:48:45 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk... Nov 03 15:50:47 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Read Capacity(16) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Nov 03 15:50:47 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Not Ready [current] Nov 03 15:50:47 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Logical unit is in process of becoming ready Nov 03 15:51:07 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Nov 03 15:51:07 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Not Ready [current] Nov 03 15:51:07 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Logical unit is in process of becoming ready Nov 03 15:51:07 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 0 512-byte logical blocks: (0 B/0 B) Nov 03 15:51:07 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 0-byte physical blocks Nov 03 15:51:14 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled Nov 03 15:51:21 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Asking for cache data failed Nov 03 15:51:21 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through Nov 03 15:51:21 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk... Nov 03 15:53:22 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Read Capacity(16) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Nov 03 15:53:22 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Not Ready [current] Nov 03 15:53:22 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Logical unit is in process of becoming ready Nov 03 15:53:43 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Nov 03 15:53:43 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Not Ready [current] Nov 03 15:53:43 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Logical unit is in process of becoming ready Nov 03 15:53:57 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk Nov 03 15:56:15 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk... Nov 03 15:58:16 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Read Capacity(16) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Nov 03 15:58:16 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Not Ready [current] Nov 03 15:58:16 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Logical unit is in process of becoming ready Nov 03 15:58:37 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Nov 03 15:58:37 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Not Ready [current] Nov 03 15:58:37 x kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Logical unit is in process of becoming ready The shred command: sudo shred -vzn 0 /dev/sdb lsblk -l NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 119.2G 0 disk sda1 8:1 0 100M 0 part /boot/efi sda2 8:2 0 250M 0 part /boot sda3 8:3 0 118.9G 0 part luks 254:0 0 118.9G 0 crypt Arch-swap 254:1 0 512M 0 lvm [SWAP] Arch-root 254:2 0 118.4G 0 lvm /

If I am wiping my /dev/sda harddrive, do I need to first repartition it (for example, with GParted), or will shred /dev/sda wipe the partition table too?

I'm using shred to wipe a partition, and did some speed testing. My results were, in seconds:

6.4  using /dev/zero as the data source
 6.5  shred's default raondom implementation
12.9  using shred's -z option

Why is -z twice as slow? Here is the detail:

# time shred -z -s 256M -n 1 /dev/sdc1
shred -z -s 256M -n 1 /dev/sdc1  0.14s user 0.05s system 1% cpu 12.919 total

# time shred    -s 256M -n 1 /dev/sdc1
shred -s 256M -n 1 /dev/sdc1  0.14s user 0.02s system 2% cpu 6.509 total

# time shred --random-source=/dev/zero   -s 256M -n 1 /dev/sdc1
shred --random-source=/dev/zero -s 256M -n 1 /dev/sdc1  0.00s user 0.06s system 0% cpu 6.419 total

(I am using Linux Mint 20 on an external USB 2.0 magnetic drive formatted as ExFAT.)

I am trying to find an OS that I can boot from my USB stick without further installation. I tried Tinycore but sadly I just couldnt save the Package "Coreutils" on it, so I had to reinstall it everytime I reboot the system. It is important that I can use the "shred" command. Because the USBsticks only purpose will be to shred old PCs. Also I dont want to connect the PCs to network. Pretty much just boot from the usb and type the command. I prefer Command line only, because a GUI is just not necessary. Thank you.

I want to wipe a partition quickly.I search the answer in website. such as: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=16M count=96 shred -v -z -n 1 /dev/sda1 **But**: All the commandline,will overwrite with value zero though there is zero. I think in the partition somewhere have value,but somewhere also have zero. **Want**: Just use commandline but not GUN.**Because ddrescue Need to** **compile** and install dd or shred or other command just overwrite zero to where that there's value is not zero in a partition in Linux. --- Update: My understand is in below Now: ddrescue -b 1572864 --generate-mode /dev/zero /dev/sda1 flash.map // This will create a flash.map ddrescue -b 1572864 --force --fill-mode=+ /dev/zero /dev/sda1 flash.map //will to fill the patition by flash.map //1572864byte =16M*96 It's right?What about my understand？