Re: Need to wipe/erase hard drive of iBook G4
Dear Jason,
Are you wanting to guarantee that all previous data is unrecoverable, or are
you just wanting to install debian?
The debian powerpc installer has an 'expert' mode available. You could run
through the installer up to the point where you have detected your hard
drive, then execute "cat /dev/urandom > /dev/hda" in a shell. You'll have
to (i) wait a really freaking long time, and (ii) set up a new partition
table, which the installer can help you do.
Or, you could just set up a new partition table and trust that the old data
will be obliterated beyond recovery after a month of regular use.
What brought me to debian orignally was that, when I became interested in
Linux, it was the only distro to actually install on my mac.
Peter
Jason Hsu wrote:
> I'm part of a group called Project Phoenix (open source blood pressure
> monitor), and I'm trying to get us to use Linux rather than Windows.
>
> The laptop we're using for Linux is an iBook G4.
>
> I didn't realize until now that the Linux world has limited support for
> the Mac/Apple/PowerPC computer. Since Debian is a popular distro and has
> PowerPC support, I have decided tentatively that we're going with this.
>
> THE BIG QUESTION:
> How do I wipe/erase the hard drive given that OS X is NOT installed? The
> person who donated this laptop used SUSE Linux on it. Also, the hard
> drive was not properly erased/wiped, so I'd like to take care of that
> myself.
>
> Please note that I have tried the PowerPC version of Boot and Nuke, and
> I'm not sure that Boot and Nuke is working properly. So I'm looking for
> an alternative to Boot and Nuke.
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