Free Space wiping

[tf1]

Hi All,

I'm looking for a prog that will wipe the free space on a drive\partition. One with a gui would be preferable.

Any recommendations? Darik's Boot and Nuke seems a little over the top for my purposes (humour).

 

Thanks

Ted

[ianw1974]

You can get Eraser 5.7 for free, and this will erase the free space on a drive whilst the operating system is booted. It also comes with the boot and nuke disk that you mentioned above, but the main prog is a gui in Windows.

 

Download here:

 

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

[tf1]

Sorry should have mentioned that i don't have windows, i only run Mdv 2005 LE

[Gowator]

The simplest way is just to create a new different filesystem...

add some files and then remove the whole filesystem....

[coverup]

The simplest way is just to create a new different filesystem...

add some files and then remove the whole filesystem....

Doesn't deleting a file from an ext3 partition mean it's gone forever? AFAIK, you can recover files from an ext2 partition, but not from ext3.

[pmpatrick]

I can think of ways to do it from the command line. Depending on how thorough you want to be, and assumming the mount point of the partition you want to have the free space cleaned on is /mnt/hda1, you could run as root with the partitiion mounted:

 

# dd if=/dev/urandom of=/mnt/hda1/cleanup
# sync
# rm -f /mnt/hda1/cleanup
# sync
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/hda1/cleanup
# sync
# rm -f /mnt/hda1/cleanup
#sync

 

What this should do is fill up all the free space on the partition with random data, delete it, fill up that space with zeroes and delete it again. This will clean things up pretty securely, but the main caveat is with journalling filesystems like reiserfs or ext3, there may still be recoverable info about what was on the drive prior to deletion.

[ramfree17]

to pmpatrick.

 

i was going to suggest the same thing without the urandom bit. :)

 

question, why does it have to be mounted? i think dd can work on a non-mounted partition which works just as well.

 

ciao!

[ianw1974]

I suppose if you do have a journaling partition, you could always replace with ext2 and then do the data wipe. I guess that would help get rid of the problem with journaling letting you recover later :unsure:

 

But worth a shot perhaps :D

[pmpatrick]

Re ramfree's question on why mounted:

 

The method I gave is for wiping only the free space on the partition, leaving the data on the partition intact. It just fills up the empty space on the partition with random junk, deletes it, fills it up with zeroes and deletes it. Whether this is effective with a journalled filesystem, I can't say. You could adopt the same method to wipe the entire partition:

 

# dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda1

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1

 

or the entire drive:

 

# dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

 

In either of these cases, the partition/drive would not be mounted. If you just want to cleanup the free space on the partition, however, I think you would have to mount the partition to create and write a file on the partition which will occupy all the free space and then delete it.

[Gowator]

If you just want to cleanup the free space on the partition, however, I think you would have to mount the partition to create and write a file on the partition which will occupy all the free space and then delete it.

If you then switch a journaling file system for a non journaling then repeat the journal will also be destroyed.

[ramfree17]

@pmpatrick:

 

i think i get it now. i speedread the whole thread so i thought we were just cleaning up one whole partition rather than the whole disk (reference to darik's boot & nuke). :woops:

 

ciao!

[scoonma]

Doesn't deleting a file from an ext3 partition mean it's gone forever? AFAIK, you can recover files from an ext2 partition, but not from ext3.

 

Well... no. Try "urpmq -i magicrescue". That nice thingy works on any filesystem. :-)

Edited September 8, 2006 by scoonma

[eyeh8windows]

I can think of ways to do it from the command line. Depending on how thorough you want to be, and assumming the mount point of the partition you want to have the free space cleaned on is /mnt/hda1, you could run as root with the partitiion mounted:

 

# dd if=/dev/urandom of=/mnt/hda1/cleanup
# sync
# rm -f /mnt/hda1/cleanup
# sync
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/hda1/cleanup
# sync
# rm -f /mnt/hda1/cleanup
#sync

 

What this should do is fill up all the free space on the partition with random data, delete it, fill up that space with zeroes and delete it again. This will clean things up pretty securely, but the main caveat is with journalling filesystems like reiserfs or ext3, there may still be recoverable info about what was on the drive prior to deletion.

 

Why is my computer telling me

 dd: opening `/mnt/hda1/cleanup': No such file or directory

when I run that as root? I tried it with and without a directory called cleanup.

Edited September 10, 2006 by eyeh8windows

[camelrider]

Shouldn't "cleanup" be a file instead of a directory?

[pmpatrick]

Post your output for:

 

$ ls -l /mnt