Boot and Nuke

Since the Samus switchover, the old machine has been sitting quietly next to my desk, awaiting final dispensation. I would like to strip it down and sell the parts, including the hard drives.

Before I do that, I need to delete all the data from them. We’re not just talking the “Recycle Bin” here, folks. This is a case when rm -rf / just won’t cut it. I’m planning on selling these disks, and I don’t want any shred of my personal information left on them.

Which brings me to Darik’s Boot and Nuke. It’s a boot disc, either CD-ROM ISO or floppy, that boots up into a limited Linux environment containing a secure data removal tool. It does multiple passes across each disk using your choice of well-known algorithms in order to completely obliterate whatever is on the drives. Have you ever needed to delete data off of a computer? I mean, really get the data off the computer? This is the program for you.

And really, the name says it all: Darik’s Boot and Nuke. I’m not really sure who Darik is, but I can attest that his boot-fu and nuke-fu are indeed both strong.

So this morning, old Samus has begun its final task - nuking itself. And then I strip it.

(Props to Chris for pointing me to DBAN for all my booting and nuking needs.)