Something like 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/my_disk_device_typically_sda bs=32768' will work fairly efficiently. If the drive is part of the manufacturer's cheap line, they may have skimped on this and just tell you it is wiped, and set the blocks into the erase state even though they do not have encryption, which means the data is still there and can be accessed to be able to re-infect the system.įor normal spinning rust disks, any bootable linux distro will work to be able to wipe them with the 'dd' command. But again, trust this only as well as you trust the manufacturer of the drive (and the price point/product level of the drive in the manufacturer's lineup). So it won't really delete the files, but since everything is encrypted and the key is no longer there, any virus/malware would be rendered inoperable. In many cases, drives that support it have full drive encryption, and what they do is change the encryption key and mark all blocks to the erase state (the state that lets the TRIM command know it can be cleaned up and reused). Some drives also support the 'ATA Secure Erase' command, which can be sent using the hdparam command. A real nasty hack could hide in those places. The problem with many of the SSDs is that the different manufacturers have different configurations in terms of reserve space, cache, and possibly even hidden firmware partitions. For SSD's you need to use a proper utility from the manufacturer of the drive.

Linux wipe disk