Re: [SLUG] wiping a HDD clean

[chuckd@nospam.aphid.net (Chuck D)]

> Using linux, how do I wipe a HD completly clean and then verify it has
> no bad sectors?  Also, what is the best way to produce an exact copy of
> a HDD?  (Assuming they are the size size/format drive and they are both
> connected to teh one system)
> 
> I have a feeling that the dd command can do both of these, but the man
> page for dd doesn't help much and I'd rather not us etrial and error for
> something like this.  :)

Rick's answered the first one but more detail for the second:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

will mirror from one drive to another. Probably best to boot from a
floppy to do this.

or to create an image of your disk as a file that you can later restore
or put on another drive:

dd if=/dev/hda of=filename

You can copy an image to a drive of different size as long as it is
larger. You then lose the extra space.

Chuck
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux Users Group Mailing List - http://www.slug.org.au
To unsubscribe send email to slug-request@nospam.slug.org.au with
unsubscribe in the text