Re: Wiping a disk partition

In reply to: Odhiambo Washington : "Wiping a disk partition"
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From: Matthew Seaman <matthew_at_FreeBSD.org>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2025 10:34:19 UTC

On 25/06/2025 11:16, Odhiambo Washington wrote:
> What is the fastest way to wipe all data on /dev/ada1p2?

Quick and dirty is to use newfs(8) to create a new filesystem.  That's 
not going to render any previous data on the partition completely 
unrecoverable, but you'ld probably need to hire a specialist recovery 
firm to do so.  Also, as you continue using the drive, old data will be 
successively overwritten.

You might need to use dd(1) to write a few MB of zeroes over the 
beginning of the partition if newfs engages an anti-foot-shooting mode.

	Cheers,

	Matthew