Super User
Super User

Questions tagged [shred]

18 questions
16
votes
3 answers

Complete wiping of hard drive - shred, wipe or dd?

I need to wipe all data of a number of hard drives, from Ubuntu Linux. I have found three command line tools: shred, wipe and dd. It seems kind of random what people recommend. Sometimes someone recommends one over the other, but they don't really…
Mads Skjern
  • 1,559
  • 8
  • 26
  • 40
11
votes
2 answers

Why is GNU shred faster than dd when filling a drive with random data?

While securely erasing a hard drive before decommissioning I noticed, that dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda takes nearly a whole day, whereas shred -vf -n 1 /dev/sda only takes a couple of hours with the same computer and the same drive. How is this…
user16115
10
votes
4 answers

Recover a file after shred command

Let's say I have some sensitive files in my computer and I want to completely delete them so that no one can ever retrieve them. For that, I can use the rm command, but it's still easily recoverable. So I choose to use the shred command that will…
Vincent
  • 121
  • 1
  • 6
3
votes
2 answers

Faster tool than shred to make files a bit difficult to recover?

I need to shred files, but there are too many files and shred takes ages for each file. Each file is 4GB. Is there a faster tool than shred -n 1? Strangely, shred -n 1 on a 4GB file takes MORE time than copying a 4GB file to the disk. For the same…
Nicolas Raoul
  • 11,561
3
votes
2 answers

how to securely wipe an AWS EBS volume (mag drive and SSD)

I have an SLES 12 SP1 system running on AWS. I need to "wipe" the EBS volumes before deprovisioning them as a customer requirement. The data is sensitive in a commercial way only (no TLAs). Is shred an appropriate tool? I see there are several posts…
Dinesh
  • 199
2
votes
1 answer

How do I shred just the first and last part of a device?

The shred command (of coreutils 8.23) overwrites a device with configurable data from beginning to end which is perfectly fine for the use cases it is designed for (which are all related to write something to the complete device). In my case it”d be…
Kalle Richter
  • 2,472
  • 6
  • 44
  • 64
2
votes
1 answer

Which Linux shell command can completely remove a file from the system and make it unrecoverable?

Which Linux shell command can completely remove a file from the system and make it unrecoverable ? I have tied rm and shred but they have their limitations:- rm --help and see the information, you will see a note there like this Note that if you…
Adarsh Goyal
  • 21
1
vote
2 answers

How to write a hard disk filling file with shred to erase disk data?

It is possible to obtain the searched result in the following two known but not searched ways: dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/mounted/partition/my_file.txt bs=64k But would it be possible to use to use shred as a source for zeros or random data and…
Alfred.37
  • 103
1
vote
1 answer

Does one can detect previous OS data on memory card of Raspberry Pi?

1) I freshly installed Ubuntu Mate on Raspberry Pi and updated it and installed all required packages I need. Then I create disk image of that SD Card using Card Reader on Another PC as 'Backup Image'. 2) Then I use that SD card with that OS on…
CrownedEagle
  • 123
1
vote
1 answer

What if any are the limitations of UNIX shred to wipe NTFS Windows disks?

Before I shred a NTFS disk with Ubuntu, can I count on shred to overwrite all data? Perhaps there is a better question to ask: please feel free to add additional questions that serve to trigger discussion regarding shred limits on NTFS disks.
gatorback
  • 1,091
0
votes
1 answer

shred command overwrite value?

I'm trying to determine what shred uses to overwrite a file. Here's the description: Overwrite the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing to recover the data. Can anyone confirm the…
jww
  • 12,722
0
votes
1 answer

How do I securely format a Buffalo NAS wirelessly?

I have a Link Station Duo NAS which is attached to a router, how do I securely erase the information on it? File Shredder and Kill disk require it to be attached to my computer which it isn't. I also don't have any other external HDD cases in which…
user183866
  • 1
0
votes
1 answer

Is it safe to trust the `shred` command to delete a file on a modern hard drive?

I heard that hard drive cache can mess with the shred command making it not useful on modern hard drives, but I can't find any other evidence to back up that claim.
Kalcifer
  • 101
0
votes
0 answers

Will tools like shred, wipe or dd (or hard drives in general) check that a write was successful?

I usually use shred to delete complete hard drives. But I was wondering if and how tools like shred, wipe or dd verify that the expected bits end up on the hard drive. Does a hard drive always check after a write? Or is there some magic in how the…
Joe
  • 101
0
votes
1 answer

Quick permanent erase with 3 modes of unnecessary files, short time and recovery search optimisation

My sister asked me to back her photos up to my external HDD and to format his laptop. Days later, my external HDD suffered a fail, resulting in loss of photos. I used Windows' Recuva, Linux's RD-Linux and TestDisk/PhotoRec, and Disk Drill's macOS to…
Oo'-
  • 103
  • 3
1
2