Wiping Data off of a 520

[mattdcknsn]

Hello, I have inherited a Snap 520 device and I was given the task of wiping all the data off of it. I know I can go into it and delete all the data but its too easy to recover (we plan to resell later).

I do not want to take the drives out and DOD wipe them. I am not sure where the OS is located at on the disks. I wasn't sure about recreating the RAIDs, deleting the existing RAID 5 and creating a new RAID 0 or a couple of RAID 1s, then I can copy a ton of junk data over to it.

Does anybody have a good idea on this topic? I tried to do some searching but couldn't uncover anything. Thanks

[blue68f100]

If you were in raid 5, you only need to destroy a min of 2 HD's. Since the GOS resides on all of the HD's, you can destroy drives 2,3,4 and the data will be lost. The only way then would be to have a special program that would allow you to rebuild the array. But in order for the machine to come back up, you need to make sure you have AV, Snapshots and disaster recovery disabled. With these running it keeps a record of the HD's and data maps to help in recovery. I would probably DOD 3 drives. But the way I would do it is this way. Power down and Remove drive 2, powerup, the unit should show HD lost. (If the unit does not boot it went into Diaster recovery because a service was not stopped.. From there with the GSU, select a clean install. This requires the GSU file, and wipes all data braking the array, returing to factory defaults.) Now power down and remove drives 3-4, reboot. The unit should boot with just drive1 , at this time it may or may not bring up diaster recovery. If not you will need to revolk it using the touch /nopivot from debug and reboot. Then select clean install and install the OS on drive 1. Then DOD drives 2-4. Power down, with the HD wiped, install drive 2. the units should install the OS on drive 2 in 5-10 min, you can tell by the leds. On a 4500 this happens around the 5-6 min mark. Power down and swap drive 2-1 and see it it will boot. If so wipe the remainig HD's. You can now hot swap the HD and the unit will be back to factory fresh settings. ALL DATA HAS NOW BEEN DOD....... If your going to use the unit, I would now take the time to run SpinRite on the HD's to confirm the HD's are healthy...

The reason of wiping drive 1 after the other 3, is that small files may still be intact, residing on a single HD.

You could swap the order of the HD's which would destroy the array, but you did not actuallly destroy the raw data. You did destroy the directory map. I'm not sure on how clean your need the HD's. If personal data is involved I would DOD a min of 2 HD if the Raid5 array consited of a 3 hd. Destroy 3 if 4 drive array. You can never be to safe in todays world. A 7 pass may be susficient, if you make sure you install the HD back in a different order. You should still have the unit trasfter the OS to another HD so you can wipe dirve 1.

The unit will bring decent money if the unit is fully operational and complete, 4 HD's, manuals and the GOS CD. If you have upgaded the OS This should to go with the unit. It's the little things that you do will make it more desirable, and bring more money in a auction.