How to Wipe Hard Drive (Ubuntu 18.04)

[meixiangsi]

So I just started using Linux for months now and still haven't gotten use to it
I was planning on deleting everything from my CPU and start anew again but I don't know how to do it. Can someone knowledgeable guide me?
Help will be much appreciated.

 

[dos2unix]

The linux way

Boot from a live distro.

Go to a console (terminal) and type the following commands

sudo fdisk -l

this will probably give some out put similar to the following...

Disk /dev/sda: 489.1 GiB, 525112713216 bytes, 1025610768 sectors
Disk model: Crucial_CT525MX3
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: F7C6E0A4-D48C-4BD0-8F3F-3937EE6A1D12

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 411647 409600 200M EFI System
/dev/sda2 411648 2508799 2097152 1G WinNT filesystem
/dev/sda3 2508800 1025609727 1023100928 487.9G WiNT LVM


Disk /dev/sdb: 223.6 GiB, 240057409536 bytes, 468862128 sectors
Disk model: INTEL SSDSC2CW24
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 01370BBA-B977-42E7-930E-51127D202139

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 468862094 468860047 223.6G Linux filesystem

In my case /dev/sda and /dev/sdb are my two hard drives.

If I had a USB drive installed, I might also see a /dev/sdc

It would probably be maybe 7.8G or something like that.

I know my main hard drive isn't 8GB, and I know it used to have windows NT on it.

So I see /dev/sda above is 498 GB, and I see it has some WinNT partitions on it.
/dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3 look like WinNT partitions.

You may have more less drives, and you may have more or less partitions,
it doesn't really matter that much, just make sure you have the right drive.

Once you know which drive it is... /dev/sda in my case.

run this command...

sudo fdisk /dev/sda (where sda is whatever drive you have)

then press "g" to partition the drive. (gpt style)

then press "w" to write this change to the drive.

That's it. You're done. Reboot and take your USB drive out.
There's a really good change your computer wont boot up now.

There is a way to create file systems and partitions on this newly formatted disk,
but if you haven't done this beofre, I would just go with the defaults that the distro auto-creates for you during the install.

 

[lekkerlinux]

So I just started using Linux for months now and still haven't gotten use to it
I was planning on deleting everything from my CPU and start anew again but I don't know how to do it. Can someone knowledgeable guide me?
Help will be much appreciated.

The easiest way would be to boot from a usb or DVD with Ubuntu on it and just follow the instructions, choosing "Normal installation" and then after that "Erase disk and install Ubuntu".

That's what I did this week and that's after trying out lots of Debian and Arch Linux based distros this year.

Ubuntu is so easy use and super reliable too.

Hope that helps. Yes, that too, Ubuntu makes you so happy, you just want to help other people.

 

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