linux: disk wipe

i'm used to formatting my disks whenever i decommission them. but doing a format only removes the pointers, right? so, here's how to do a disk wipe...

1. boot your box using a bootable linux. i use linux rescue.

2. run fdisk to identify the the device you need to wipe
# fdisk -l

3. use dd to write zeros to the whole disk and overwrite whatever's on your disks. you can write using a different data other than zero (dd if=<data to write> of=<device to write on>)

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 bs=4096

4. when there's no space left on device, you're done.

no more recoverable data! hoorah!