1 Topic by daganzhang

  • daganzhang
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Topic: Can GParted be used as a disk wipe (clean) tool ?

In other words,  is "delete partition" provided by GParted equal to Diskpart command 'clean' ?

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Can GParted be used as a disk wipe (clean) tool ?

The Partition -> Delete action will only delete the partition entry from the partition table.  The data that was in the partition is left on the disk device and is recoverable by using data recovery tools.

If you wish to make the data non-recoverable you might consider either shredding the partition or writing zeros (use dd if=/dev/zero of=/path-to-partition) to the entire partition before deleting it.

3 Reply by daganzhang (edited by daganzhang 2016-02-28 02:07:24)

  • daganzhang
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Re: Can GParted be used as a disk wipe (clean) tool ?

gedakc wrote:

The Partition -> Delete action will only delete the partition entry from the partition table.  The data that was in the partition is left on the disk device and is recoverable by using data recovery tools.

If you wish to make the data non-recoverable you might consider either shredding the partition or writing zeros (use dd if=/dev/zero of=/path-to-partition) to the entire partition before deleting it.

THANK YOU for the reply.
Basically I use GParted to restart over in my line of work--- if I messed up the imaging deployment process on a unit, I use GPparted live to delete HDD or mSATA (now I know it's only to delete partition entry), then restart the imaging process.

But this does not work with a RAID deployed unit. I guess a RAID card, say, an Avago MegRAID card, write raid data not on the  partition table?  And I assume dd command like the one you suggested might work ?

Thanks again.

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Can GParted be used as a disk wipe (clean) tool ?

When working with RAID be sure to choose the RAID device path (e.g. /dev/mapper/isw_efjbbijhh_Vol0), and not the individual drive paths.

If GParted does not automatically recognize the RAID device path then you can pass it on the command line.  See GParted Manual - Running GParted from the Command Line.

The dd command will also work if passed the proper RAID device path.