On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:26:29 +0000, ? wrote:

> On 11 Jul 2007 14:58:50 GMT in <4694f02a$0$89003$dbd4f001@news.wanadoo.nl> Joachim Schipper <jdNoOtSPAMschipper@math.uu.nl> wrote:
>> Ryoko <ryoko-nsp-@talk21.com> wrote:
>>> I was looking at wiping a disk and found the following:
>>> http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129
>>>
>>> in particular Secure Erase
>>> http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/Hughes/SecureErase.html
>>>
>>> Which talks about using a function built into modern drives.
>>>
>>> from the readme:
>>> "It offers the option to run the drive internal secure erase command,
>>> security erase unit, based on the ATA specification by the T13 technical
>>> committee."
>>>
>>> Is this function available via OpenBSD?
>>
>> No. Unless you have very rich and persistent enemies, just zeroing the
>> drive works fine; if you do have such enemies, consider just dd'ing from
>> /dev/arandom a couple of times. Or, better yet,physically distructing
>> the drive as suggested before.
>
> If you think you'll end up wiping a drive by zeroing or random data
> wipe it with random data a few times before putting the real data on for
> the first time.

To kick in a suggestion, DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke - googleable) can be
slow, but claims to be effective against most reasonable attempts to
recover data.

Note that erasing a disk pretty much mandates not running an OS off it at
the same time....