FN-GM Posted March 4, 2014 Posted March 4, 2014 Hi, I need to Erase some disks on a server before I give them away. All my usual products such as DBAN and KillDisk will not work with Raid Cards. Can anyone suggest another product please? The servers are Dell PowerEdge 2950's with a Perc 5 card. Thanks
laserblazer Posted March 4, 2014 Posted March 4, 2014 Can you remove each drive and erase it eleswhere?
FN-GM Posted March 4, 2014 Author Posted March 4, 2014 We don't have anything to read SAS, plus due to the sheer number of disks it will take to long.
synaesthesia Posted March 4, 2014 Posted March 4, 2014 As above. Otherwise, if this is something you may do often, invest in some decent software like Blancco for that purpose. Works with raid cards fine.
FN-GM Posted March 4, 2014 Author Posted March 4, 2014 Its a 1 off. Usually an outside company does the erasing for us in exchange for the server hardware. We are not going to chuck money at it, because the servers are being given away for nothing.
timbo343 Posted March 4, 2014 Posted March 4, 2014 I was told by HP that if a drive was removed from a Raid array, the data couldn't be read as i was in the same position.
plexer Posted March 4, 2014 Posted March 4, 2014 Don't know if it would be sufficient for your needs but you can use the built in controller utility to initialise the disks. Ben
plexer Posted March 4, 2014 Posted March 4, 2014 or Why doesn't DBAN detect the disks in a RAID array? | Darik's Boot And Nuke Ben
FN-GM Posted March 7, 2014 Author Posted March 7, 2014 Its not working with DBAN because of the lack of drivers. initialising the disks, isn't enough really.
jamesfed Posted March 7, 2014 Posted March 7, 2014 How about create two volumes - one (say 40GB in size for a Windows OS install) and the other with the reminder of the capacity of the drives with everything in RAID0. Install Windows and then use the blank space eraser tool in Eraser Eraser | Internet Security and Privacy on the other partition to obliterate anything that might still be around.
Crumpet Posted March 7, 2014 Posted March 7, 2014 Have you tried Ultimate Boot CD? I've no idea if it will work on RAID but it has partitioning tools and disc shredding software on it. It's free.
Mcshammer_dj Posted March 7, 2014 Posted March 7, 2014 re configure the raid to use jbod, we did this on our HP servers and DBan worked a treat
AngryTechnician Posted March 8, 2014 Posted March 8, 2014 (edited) Here's what I do: 1. Break the existing RAID arrays and reconfigure for RAID0 (striped) to reduce erasing performance. 2. Boot with a Ubuntu Live CD (recognises most RAID controllers in my experience, including Dell PERC) 3. Find disk device names using: sudo lshw -class disk | less 4. For each device, run (for example device sda): sudo shred -vz /dev/sda Edited March 8, 2014 by AngryTechnician
plexer Posted March 8, 2014 Posted March 8, 2014 Dban should recognise the controller just not when the disks are configured as an existing array. Ben
laserblazer Posted March 8, 2014 Posted March 8, 2014 Our Site Manager has one of these and finds it quite therapeutic 1
MordyT Posted March 9, 2014 Posted March 9, 2014 There is a clean option in the perc. Why not use that?
plexer Posted March 9, 2014 Posted March 9, 2014 Because that's not a secure erase function and the servers and disks are not staying within his establishment. Ben
matt40k Posted March 9, 2014 Posted March 9, 2014 Hey @FN-GM do you know where they are going and do you trust them? Are they staying in the UK?
psydii Posted March 9, 2014 Posted March 9, 2014 Initialise the array using the raid firmware. Install a temporary copy of windows7/2k8r2, ensuring the process deletes any existing partitions, and set them up fresh. The use the cypher tool to overwrite all free space with randomised data: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315672
Arthur Posted March 9, 2014 Posted March 9, 2014 Then use the cypher tool to overwrite all free space with randomised data: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315672 A full format would also work: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961 The format command behavior has changed in Windows Vista. By default in Windows Vista, the format command writes zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed. In Windows XP and in earlier versions of the Windows operating system, the format command does not write zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed. See also: Overwriting Hard Drive Data: The Great Wiping Controversy 1
FN-GM Posted March 10, 2014 Author Posted March 10, 2014 (edited) Thanks chaps for a new things to go on. I am going to start with the Linux route. Hey @FN-GM do you know where they are going and do you trust them? Are they staying in the UK? @bossman is having them. Edited March 10, 2014 by FN-GM 1
AngryTechnician Posted March 10, 2014 Posted March 10, 2014 @bossman is have them. Definitely can't trust him, he's well dodgy. 1
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