Freespace Wipe Utility

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1

Hi – I’ve searched this site and google, but no luck. Is there a command line utility or an app within the SuSE distros that will securely wipe freespace on a drive? I have used the Freespace Wipe tool in PGP on Win32 machines. Is there an equivalent tool in SuSE 11?

I have a surplus machine that I’ve installed SuSE 11.0 and I’d like to gift it to a school. My concern is that there may be sensitive info on the HD left over from its use by employees (random pr0n remnants, personal info, etc).

Thanks in advance!

2

devedge wrote:

>
> Hi – I’ve searched this site and google, but no luck. Is there a
> command line utility or an app within the SuSE distros that will
> securely wipe freespace on a drive? I have used the Freespace Wipe tool
> in PGP on Win32 machines. Is there an equivalent tool in SuSE 11?
>
> I have a surplus machine that I’ve installed SuSE 11.0 and I’d like to
> gift it to a school. My concern is that there may be sensitive info on
> the HD left over from its use by employees (random pr0n remnants,
> personal info, etc).
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
>
what a freaking great question

I had better results googling though entries are old:

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-281480.html
http://linux.die.net/man/1/scrub - option 3
can be dl’ed here http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Administration/Scrub-30805.shtml

let us know you experiences

Suse 11.0 x64, Kde 4.1beta (factory repo), Opera 9.x weekly

3

google01103 wrote:

> devedge wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi – I’ve searched this site and google, but no luck. Is there a
>> command line utility or an app within the SuSE distros that will
>> securely wipe freespace on a drive? I have used the Freespace Wipe tool
>> in PGP on Win32 machines. Is there an equivalent tool in SuSE 11?
>>
>> I have a surplus machine that I’ve installed SuSE 11.0 and I’d like to
>> gift it to a school. My concern is that there may be sensitive info on
>> the HD left over from its use by employees (random pr0n remnants,
>> personal info, etc).
>>
>> Thanks in advance!
>>
>>
> what a freaking great question
>
> I had better results googling though entries are old:
>
> http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-281480.html
> http://linux.die.net/man/1/scrub - option 3
> can be dl’ed here
> http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Administration/Scrub-30805.shtml
>
> let us know you experiences
current version of scrub http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-unix-make-retrieving-data-more-difficult.html

Suse 11.0 x64, Kde 4.1beta (factory repo), Opera 9.x weekly

4

Personally I use scrub (installed from RPM).

5

If you really want to wipe your drive clean and won’t settle with any half-baked solutions, this method looks real thorough to me.