Re: OT: Can Reformatting A Hard Drive To ext3 Destroy All the Data On It?

[Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk>]

On Thu, 28 May 2009 22:29:23 -0400
Robert L Cochran <cochranb speakeasy net> wrote:

> I have a hard drive that I need to destroy the data on. What is the most 
> dependable way to do this?

Thermite ?

> Can reformatting the drive as ext3 or ext4 or 
> some other filesystem effectively destroy the existing data?

No

> Is there free software that can write zeroes or some form of nonsense to 
> every storage location?

That isn't completely guaranteed. Modern drives have a security erase
command which I think some tools like hdparm can issue as shipped nowdays