Is there any AIX tool available to perform government level disk wipes
on hard drives?

Thanks,
Bob

In article <k8vvf09n7ne5odpha04mdj637m6mmhd705@4ax.com>, Bob F wrote:
>
> Is there any AIX tool available to perform government level disk wipes
> on hard drives?
>
> Thanks,
> Bob

# dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/DRIVE

Bob F <bobf@nospamplease.com> wrote in message news:<k8vvf09n7ne5odpha04mdj637m6mmhd705@4ax.com>. ..
> Is there any AIX tool available to perform government level disk wipes
> on hard drives?
>
> Thanks,
> Bob

There is probably an easier way, but if you have a new disk in your
system, you could try to use the diag option:

diag
- Task Selection
- Disk Maintenance
- Disk to Disk Copy

Copy the "empty" new disk to the disk you want to wipe...I believe it
will replace every sector on the old disk with the contents of the new
empty disk. Take note: This is theory and I have never tested it.
Hopefully someone else can give more details (or even confirm if the
method I suggested would work).

Steve

In <a7f2ae7e.0407221349.177a68b1@posting.google.com >, Steve N. wrote:

>diag
>- Task Selection
>- Disk Maintenance
>- Disk to Disk Copy
>
>Copy the "empty" new disk to the disk you want to wipe

I guess I should have explained it better. I'm looking for a program that
will write several passes over the disk using different patterns on each
pass. The object being to make the entire disk "unrecoverable" to even the
best of forensic analysis. We have several disks that need to be wiped of
all trace of customer information before they are given away to schools. I
remember seeing diags for disks that would allow you to enter patterns and
select a number of passes, but that was years ago and the drives were a lot
smaller then.

Thanks for the input.

Bob

"Bob F" <bobf@nospamplease.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:9gu0g0lka7ei3ruu33qmn9bbn987b9d661@4ax.com...
> In <a7f2ae7e.0407221349.177a68b1@posting.google.com >, Steve N. wrote:
>
> >diag
> >- Task Selection
> >- Disk Maintenance
> >- Disk to Disk Copy
> >
> >Copy the "empty" new disk to the disk you want to wipe
>
> I guess I should have explained it better. I'm looking for a program that
> will write several passes over the disk using different patterns on each
> pass. The object being to make the entire disk "unrecoverable" to even
the
> best of forensic analysis. We have several disks that need to be wiped of
> all trace of customer information before they are given away to schools. I
> remember seeing diags for disks that would allow you to enter patterns and
> select a number of passes, but that was years ago and the drives were a
lot
> smaller then.
>
> Thanks for the input.
>
> Bob

Hallo Bob,

the diag option to format media Steve suggested does this. It will overwrite
your disk three times: first time with all zeros, then ones and finally
random data. That should be sufficient for disks you give away to schools
because <QUOTE IBM>this erase operation fulfils the corresponding legal
requirements of the US and many European countries</QUOTE IBM>.
In case you feel still uncomfortable you might simply run format from diag
several times.

HTH,
Andreas

"Andreas Schulze" <b79xan@gmx.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:cdq8n1$qrl1@news-1.bank.dresdner.net...
> "Bob F" <bobf@nospamplease.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:9gu0g0lka7ei3ruu33qmn9bbn987b9d661@4ax.com...
> > In <a7f2ae7e.0407221349.177a68b1@posting.google.com >, Steve N. wrote:
> >
> > >diag
> > >- Task Selection
> > >- Disk Maintenance
> > >- Disk to Disk Copy
> > >
> > >Copy the "empty" new disk to the disk you want to wipe
> >
> > I guess I should have explained it better. I'm looking for a program
that
> > will write several passes over the disk using different patterns on each
> > pass. The object being to make the entire disk "unrecoverable" to even
> the
> > best of forensic analysis. We have several disks that need to be wiped
of
> > all trace of customer information before they are given away to schools.
I
> > remember seeing diags for disks that would allow you to enter patterns
and
> > select a number of passes, but that was years ago and the drives were a
> lot
> > smaller then.
> >
> > Thanks for the input.
> >
> > Bob
>
> Hallo Bob,
>
> the diag option to format media Steve suggested does this. It will
overwrite
> your disk three times: first time with all zeros, then ones and finally
> random data. That should be sufficient for disks you give away to schools
> because <QUOTE IBM>this erase operation fulfils the corresponding legal
> requirements of the US and many European countries</QUOTE IBM>.
> In case you feel still uncomfortable you might simply run format from diag
> several times.
>
> HTH,
> Andreas
>
Oops, I just realised that Steve suggested Disk To Disk Copy instead of
Format Media. So, to be precise I shall like to emphasize that I from the
diag panels for disk management you need to use the format option.

Regards,
Andreas

Mike wrote:

> In article <k8vvf09n7ne5odpha04mdj637m6mmhd705@4ax.com>, Bob F wrote:
>
>>Is there any AIX tool available to perform government level disk wipes
>>on hard drives?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Bob
>
>
> # dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/DRIVE

a) this won't be enough as a zeroed disk is recovered easily
enough in case someone really wants to.
b) this doesn't even work for more than the first block.
You meant dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/DRIVE !
In future at least add a second dd from /dev/urandom


The nicest way is doing eight rounds with an rotating pattern,
0111111
1011111
1101111
1110111
1111011
1111101
1111110


Florian

On 2004-07-23, Bob F <bobf@nospamplease.com> wrote:

> pass. The object being to make the entire disk "unrecoverable" to even the
> best of forensic analysis.

If that is your goal you must physically destroy those disks, paying special
attention to the platters. Melting would be good.

This means that you can't give away disks you want to protect against the best
of forensic analysis.

--
Jurjen Oskam

"Avoid putting a paging file on a fault-tolerant drive, such as a mirrored
volume or a RAID-5 volume. Paging files do not need fault-tolerance."-MS Q308417