Program to clean disk in Linux

[Murilo_A]

I have an old Windows computer that I want to clean all the data, I'm thinking of making a Linux USB stick and using it to format the HDD on the computer, but, I also would want to do the "Clean free space" thing, but I have no idea of any programs that do that in Linux, can someone recommend me one?

[SCHISCHKA]

you can use dd if=/dev/zero to fill the disk with zeros; if thats what you meant by clean free space thing

[Murilo_A]

4 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

you can use dd if=/dev/zero to fill the disk with zeros; if thats what you meant by clean free space thing

I mean the function in some programs that completely deletes the files, instead of just making them invisible and possible to recover. I might try that command.

[Ronda]

sudo dd bs=4096 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda (or whatever the drive name is)

[SCHISCHKA]

1 minute ago, Murilo_A said:

I mean the function in some programs that it completely deletes the files, instead of just making them invisible and possible to recover. I might try that command.

yes just fill the disk with zeros or use /dev/random

[steezemageeze]

3 minutes ago, Name Taken said:

/usr/bin/shred can be used on specific files as well as partition/disks.

This is what I usually use. OP, type "shred -v /dev/sda" and it should write zeros over everything on the disk 3 times by default. All you would need to do is burn an Arch Linux ISO to a USB drive, and type that command when you load the system.

[Sintezza]

gparted.