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Questions tagged [shred]

35 questions
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5 answers

Is shred bad for erasing SSDs?

Whenever I sold a drive I've zeroed it once with shred from a live environment: sudo shred -vzn 0 /dev/sdX Before I double-checked it wasn't mounted. This is the fastest way to securely erase a drive I know of. Now I've heard it's bad for SSDs. Is…
H3R3T1K
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3 answers

How can I verify that my hard disk has been zeroed / wiped?

I used shred to wipe my external hard disk: sudo shred -vz /dev/sdb I should also add that the disk had 5 bad sectors. I want to verify the disk has been zeroed, per…
NoExpert
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1 answer

Using ddrescue to shred only rescued portions of disk

Magnetic drive has failed. I used ddrescue to recover ~85% of it, with a map file, but the rest is borked and continuing to scrub it would take years. I can return it for a replacement. I'd like to shred my data first. When I try to write to it, it…
endolith
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3 answers

Effectivity of shred on different file systems

man shred warns that the command is not useful on file systems that don't overwrite in-place. I don't have much knowledge about the current and upcoming file systems, but I would suspect that many of them support some special in-place write mode for…
David
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7
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1 answer

How to securely delete data after rm

I deleted a file I meant to shred first. $ rm somefile instead of $ shred somefile $ rm somefile Is there a way to shred a file after 'rm'-ing it?
Drist
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6
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0 answers

External Drive Recognized by `ls dev` but "no medium found"

I am trying to shred an old external hard drive using Linux Mint 17 (an Ubuntu-based distro) and a Vantec IDE/SATA to USB 3.0 adapter. The system recognizes the presence of the drive. Here is the relevant output from lshw: *-scsi:1 physical…
Keith Bennett
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6
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3 answers

How to securely delete a directory without leaving a trace?

I already know that using shred will overwrite my files in such a way that leaves them unrecoverable. However shred can't be used to hide directories. Error Message: failed to open for writing: Is a directory I can't use hard-drive…
1478963
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5
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5 answers

Filling my hard drive with zeros

I m looking for best and fastest way to remove all my data From hard drive. I M on linux Of you know something with doing this operation on a USB stick share with me. Other ways are also acceptable Anything quick Best regards
Prince JohNy Freemason
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1 answer

How secure is data removal with rm followed by zerofree on the partition?

Instead of using srm, wipe or shred, one may simple unlink the file and run zerofree on the involved partition: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt rm /mnt/confidential_file umount /mnt zerofree /dev/sda1 How safe is this method in comparison to srm, wipe and…
user207114
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5
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3 answers

Secure delete folder CentOS 7

How do I securely delete a folder, with all of its contents, so it cannot be recovered? I have tried the shred command but it only works with files and not folders. I have also found out that there is a package called secure-delete which seems to…
Sillo
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4
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3 answers

Using "shred" on BSD systems

Linux has shred, from the GNU coreutils package, to securely overwrite data in-place when removing files. What is the equivalent on BSD systems (and specifically on macOS)?
CarriMegrabyan
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1 answer

Output to variable or file using (find with -exec and shred)

I have a find command that I exec to shred and it works great; however, I need to capture the output of this and pass to a variable or a file. I have tried so many iterations of the below commands, but cant seem to get it to work. I also have tried…
John Riordan
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3
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1 answer

data recovery after partial shred

well i issued the following command: shred -v /dev/sdb. However I wanted to shred /dev/sda. I realized my mistake after about 2gb had been shredded (out of 2.7tb raid volume). what is the recommended action to recover these files?
mkk
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2
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1 answer

How to use the shred command the right way?

I got to know about shred yesterday. I want to know the proper way of removing files with it. Should I first shred the file and then use rm to remove it? $shred $rm Or should I just use the shred command with the -u…
Wade Wayne
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1 answer

Making a Deleted folder Impossible to Recover

Suppose you visit a bad location on earth with your laptop. Thieves are about to break in and steal your laptop. So you run : rm -rf /folder but what if thieves have very advanced tools to recover deleted files ? perhaps as advanced as FBI / CIA…
user217298
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