From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 10 15:58:23 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 20A74580 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:58:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from blue.qeng-ho.org (blue.qeng-ho.org [217.155.128.241]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id AD0FAACD for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:58:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from fileserver.home.qeng-ho.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fileserver.home.qeng-ho.org (8.14.7/8.14.5) with ESMTP id s2AFtdm7048821; Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:55:40 GMT (envelope-from freebsd@qeng-ho.org) Message-ID: <531DE07B.8050704@qeng-ho.org> Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:55:39 +0000 From: Arthur Chance User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.3.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Dave B , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to destroy a zpool that can no longer be imported? References: <531DCE03.30432.E0C4CA2@g8kbvdave.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <531DCE03.30432.E0C4CA2@g8kbvdave.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:58:23 -0000 On 10/03/2014 14:36, Dave B wrote: > If you don't mind loosing everthing on the physical disk(s)... > > "DBAN" > > Darik's Boot and Nuke. http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/ > > Unlike Gpart (and GParted) this will truly errase the disk. > > What you end up with a truly clean, and able to be used for whatever you want > afterwards, with no odd problems. > > I found GParted in particular, though it destroys the partition tables OK, it does > not remove the data on disk that was in the partition. As a result, I had > terrible troubles a while ago, getting FBSD 9.2 to reload, after I seriously > screwed something up. GParted didn't do the job, I kept getting strange lib > errors during the reinstall (from CD.) > > DBAN did the job, but it does take time, as it writes random noise to the entire > physical disk, sector by sector. The re-install after that, just worked, no errors. > > The price is right, but take care, once let loose, that's it, there is no turning > back. If all you want to do is clear a disk in order to reinstall it, doing dd if=/dev/zero of=$DISK bs=1g (possibly from a live CD/DVD) is quicker and doesn't require you to download and burn an extra ISO.