Linux - How to Wipe Hard Drive

Knowing how to wipe a hard drive is an important skill for all Linux users to be familiar with. Deleting a file is not enough. When you delete a file, the data is still there. Deleting just removes the pointer to that data. If you want to make sure that sensitive data is completely and securely removed it needs to be properly overwritten.

To wipe a hard drive on Linux, there exists a slew of different tools that you can use. These are some of the options you have:

• Use the dd command
• Use the shred tool
• Use the badblocks tool
• DBAN