From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 21 21:17:00 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 01E1516A5BE for ; Sun, 21 May 2006 21:17:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (dsl231-043-140.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net [216.231.43.140]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE3EB43D70 for ; Sun, 21 May 2006 21:16:55 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tao.thought.org (8.13.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k4LLGsVK030766; Sun, 21 May 2006 14:16:55 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: (from kline@localhost) by tao.thought.org (8.13.4/8.13.1/Submit) id k4LLGs0x030765; Sun, 21 May 2006 14:16:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline) Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 14:16:54 -0700 From: Gary Kline To: John Nielsen Message-ID: <20060521211653.GC30259@thought.org> References: <20060520234655.GA9962@thought.org> <20060520215744.9g32voga8ssc8s04@newwebmail.jnielsen.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060520215744.9g32voga8ssc8s04@newwebmail.jnielsen.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Organization: Thought Unlimited. Public service Unix since 1986. X-Of_Interest: Observing 19++ years of service to the Unix community Cc: Gary Kline , FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: cleaning off unix/linux???? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 21:17:02 -0000 On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 09:57:44PM -0400, John Nielsen wrote: > Quoting Gary Kline : > > > Gang, > > > > A 40G drive that I thought was bad (when trying to install W2K > > on the drive) may be entirely good. I am trying to avoid having > > to buy a DOS/Win platform. I've had both W2K and FBSD or Ubuntu > > on this one machine. For various reasons I need one DOS machine. > > (Already have 7 or 8 *Nix servers.) The Windows 2000 > > "Professional" CD find some other non-Windows partition and > > press "D" and "L" as I will, the installation CD keeps > > complaining. Eventually I have to hit F3 to quit. So, nutshell, > > is there any way I can completely remove any trace of *Nix? > > -----I remember having a DOS floppy and typing an undocumented > > MBR \ command that wiped the drive clean of this boot record, > > but this was [mumble] years ago. > > Boot to a recent FreeBSD Install CD (with the Rescue tools on disk 1) > or a not-so-recent FreeBSD Rescue CD, and go to rescue mode. > > After verifying the device name of the drive you're trying to "clean" > (using dmesg and/or fdisk), do this (I'm assuming a single drive, ad0): > > dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad0 bs=32k count=1 > > That will overwrite the first 32k of the drive with zeroes. That > should wipe out the MBR and the partition table. Since you want the > drive to be "clean" anyway, it doesn't hurt to make the bs or count > values higher. To zero out the entire drive, you could do this: > > dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad0 bs=1m > > (With no "count" option it will write to the end of the device.) > > Doing any of this on a drive with data you care about is of course > contraindicated. > This looks like the best way of getting rid of the master boot rec; thanks. gary > JN -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org www.thought.org Public service Unix