On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Per Jessen
Kai Ponte wrote:
On Thursday 27 March 2008 07:48:47 am Bob Rea wrote:
U.S. government SECRET requires a low-level format.
How does one do a low level format? I got asked to do this at work but no one would tell me how.
Typically that's at the BIOS level. You do this from there.
Typically you won't find such an option in a modern BIOS. I'm not sure the IDE commandset even supports it anymore. A "low-level format" is a left-over from days long gone.
Not really the same but ATA has a "security erase" command now. And has for many years. In theory the drive has the ability to enhance the voltage going to the head and it overwrites all sectors, not just the user addressible ones. ie. bad blocks, HPAs, DCO protected, spare blocks, etc. I've read that the US government will accept a Security Erase as a disk wipe. I have not seen official docs to that effect. You can issue it via hdparm, but in my testing a lot of bios's block it from getting to the drive, so you need to test that it is working for you. If it does get to the drive it should take a long time to complete. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org