Erasing clerk computer hard drives
Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2022 9:36 am
This post is just explaining my success using the tool Shredos: https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64
Wiping hard drives isn't as easy as it seems. The church wants clerk computers wiped so they can repurpose the computers. But https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/hel ... e?lang=eng only mentions using Windows to do it. Unfortunately sometimes I just don't have an admin account on the clerk machine.
I tried using DBAN, but frankly the tool is harder to find and a pain to get working on a boot USB. Searching around, I found Shredos. It's actively maintained and it does the job. I used a img to USB writer (balenaEtcher in my case), selected the appropriate Shredos img file, and made a boot USB. From there on the clerk computer I had to change the boot order (on the Dell computers I was working on, I had to press F12 on the boot screen, then get into the BIOS, then make USB the #1 boot option). Shredos booted right up and found the hard drive. I had to push space to select it, then Shift + S to have it start. It takes about 6 hours as it runs a few passes, and then it's done.
Wiping hard drives isn't as easy as it seems. The church wants clerk computers wiped so they can repurpose the computers. But https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/hel ... e?lang=eng only mentions using Windows to do it. Unfortunately sometimes I just don't have an admin account on the clerk machine.
I tried using DBAN, but frankly the tool is harder to find and a pain to get working on a boot USB. Searching around, I found Shredos. It's actively maintained and it does the job. I used a img to USB writer (balenaEtcher in my case), selected the appropriate Shredos img file, and made a boot USB. From there on the clerk computer I had to change the boot order (on the Dell computers I was working on, I had to press F12 on the boot screen, then get into the BIOS, then make USB the #1 boot option). Shredos booted right up and found the hard drive. I had to push space to select it, then Shift + S to have it start. It takes about 6 hours as it runs a few passes, and then it's done.