topic Re: Mediainit question in Operating System - HP-UX

Mediainit question

Glenn Wagner — Tue, 23 May 2000 10:48:50 GMT

I need a way to wipe out the data on a disk from C180. I know that mediainit writes test patterns to all the data blocks, but I am assuming it only does that once. I need to write patterns at least 3 times to ensure the data is unrecoverable. This is a government requirement. Is there any way to do this? Will running mediainit 3 times on the disk accomplish this? Would there be a faster alternative? Any help would be appreciated.

Re: Mediainit question

Robert Gamble — Tue, 23 May 2000 11:14:04 GMT

I use a product called Unishred. It writes 4 different patterns and then does a verify on the last pattern. It is very effective for 'wiping' disks. Unfortunately, I am in an HP class right now and do not have outside internet access to find the url for you. Try searching for 'unishred'.

Good Luck!

Re: Mediainit question

Shyam Kishore — Tue, 23 May 2000 14:11:38 GMT

Hi,

Using mediainit for three times is not advisable. You can try using dd to write zero to all the locations of your disk.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=

I don't think you require to do it for 3 times if once it is successful.

-Shyam