2

I'm seeing a blank screen with cursor(underscore) at the top left. My laptop is accessing the hard disk continously. It's been around 15 minutes.

sushil
  • 21

2 Answers2

3

What command did you use? Just for the record, if you used dd without specifying a block size, it will take an eternity. If you specify a decent block size, it goes quicker.

That said, it depends on so many factors that it's impossible to give you a decent answer. (For example: Disk speed, interface type, whether there are errors on the disk, ...)

My first question is: why do you want to zero it out? If it's for your own use, just repartition. If you want to trash the disk, the most efficient way is to use a nice big hammer on the disk until its heavily damaged. That should stop most amateurs getting any data from it.

jawtheshark
  • 2,617
0

The last time I did this before selling a disc a couple of years ago, dd-ing with a 4086 byte buffer and appropriate numbers for the size of the disk, I was getting 2-3 GB/minute (there's a dd option for getting occasional progress reports, though I forget the details). So a 500GB disc would take around 200 minutes or 3 and a bit hours.

Remember, you've got to generate 500GB of data (that it's all "0" doesn't matter), then write it to the disc. If you're on a USB-2 connector, for example, you'll be limited to 480MB/sec, and 500GB @ 0.48GB/sec is a thousand seconds (18 minutes) even with nothing else happening at all.

Rockdoctor
  • 101