> New Open Source Tool: wipeout | Courtney Rosenthal

New Open Source Tool: wipeout

Fast, secure, interactive disk erase utility.

photo of disk drive being destroyed by blowtorch

Posted: August 5, 2022

I’ve released a new tool for easily performing a secure erase on disk drives.

It’s called wipeout. It’s posted here: https://github.com/courtney-rosenthal/wipeout

The tool has a few really nice features.

First, it’s hella fast. The conventional way to wipe a hard drive is to repeatedly write over it – and that can easily take half a day to complete. wipeout uses the ATA Secure Erase feature (supported by most modern drives) to perform the wipe in just a minute or two.

Second, it uses automatic device discovery. You don’t need to tell it device paths or anything. Just start wipeout. Then plug in the hard drive. It will find the drive and prompt you to confirm the wipe.

Finally, it certifies the wipe. When the wipe completes, it does a data readback to ensure everything it’s all zeroes.

The tool is released into the public domain. Give it a try.

Disclaimer: use at your own risk!


photo credit: https://toolbox.easeus.com/hdd-wipe/destroy-old-hard-drives.html

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