wiping a partition

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> 
> 	I've gotten into a wierd situation where the best course seems
> to be wipe a (BSD) partition - without chnaging the size or location
> - and then restoring from backup.
> 	Based on the Handbook (sec. 12.3.2) the correct would seem to
> be:
> 
> 	make backup
> 	cd /
> 	dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da1 bs=1k count=1
> 	newfs -O 2 -U /dev/da1e
> 	restore from backup
> 
> 	Have I overlooked anything?

That will wipe the whole da1 disk , not just a partition on it.

I don't know what you really need, but something
like 
  cd /
  umount /dev/da1s1e
  newfs /dev/da1s1e 
would make the current stuff on the e partition of slice 1 on disk da1 
unreadable short of using one of those heroic super recovery services.

If you want the old stuff back, sandwich that with the 
backup and restore.

////jerry

> 
> 
> 					Robert Huff
>