Re: How to zero a failing disk drive before disposal?

On Thu, Oct 10, 2024, at 07:46, Michael Sierchio wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 7:58 AM Ronald F. Guilmette 
> <rfg@tristatelogic.com> wrote:
>> I have a pretty ancient 4TB spinning rust drive (WD4001FAEX) that is unambiguously at
>> death's door:
> 
>> Any suggestions?  If worse comes to worse I guess I will end up writing my own tiny
>> little C program to just write 4KB blocks to a designated output file while ignoring
>> all output errors, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if somebody else already
>> created something I can use in this context.
>
> There is no method of writing to a disk that can reliably delete or 
> obscure all data – modern disk drives silently remap sectors, making 
> them unavailable to the host for writes.  If the data on the drive is 
> particularly sensitive, physical destruction of the media is the best 
> approach.  The DOD method is crush, then burn. ;-)
>
> -M

True M but you’re completely ignoring applicable threats. Unless you’re likely a target of supply chain tampering, just use the ATA Secure Erase feature built into the drives firmware and send the failing drive out for proper recycling.

Physical destruction of the drives is the only option if supply chain tampering is a concern otherwise encrypt the disk, use the ATA Secure Erase, and reuse or recycle depending on estimated drive life left.

The hdparm manual page discusses how to invoke the ATA Secure Erase feature. It may require hot plugging the data cable for the drive.