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WeeDram

Member

From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Registered: 2016-04-14

Posts: 91

Re-format a wiped drive

[Solved] This is only of academic interest to me. It is not a cry for help having done something possibly irretrievable.
I am disposing of/recycling some old external hard-drives. After wiping one using # dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX bs=4096 status=progress, I wondered if it could be reformatted if someone actually wanted to use it. I don't but decided to investigate a bit and got stuck at the fact that the drive doesn't even show up when plugged into the computer.

So, if someone wanted to reuse the drive, is it possible and how might it be done?

I did searches using various searches using format re-format and wiped drive but every search seems to just come up with how to do one or the other.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Last edited by WeeDram (2023-09-30 22:48:23)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,462

Website

Re: Re-format a wiped drive

I did searches using various searches using format re-format and wiped drive but every search seems to just come up with how to do one or the other.

Yes, because the two have nothing to do with one another.  You can reformat any functioning drive.  The "wipe" has nothing to do with this - and aside from ensuring the security of the data that used to be on the disk, the wipe itself is irrelevant.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,089

Re: Re-format a wiped drive

the drive doesn't even show up when plugged into the computer

Doesn't show up how where?
You'll not get a "hello" from some GUI FM but would expect the device node to be there - or an error message in dmesg.

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WeeDram

Member

From: Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Registered: 2016-04-14

Posts: 91

Re: Re-format a wiped drive

Sorry! I must have missed my coffee or had too much. As has been pointed out, the drive is there (no icon on the GUI) but easily found. I think I just thought "wow, that really did wipe the disk" and went off in that tangent.
I feel kind of ...
Well, anyway. Thanks for the quick replies.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,089

Re: Re-format a wiped drive

Please mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc