Erasing a Disk

You can use the
Erase Disk
task to wipe a disk clean. Hence, the partitions along with data are removed from the client computer. When you reallocate hardware, you can use this task to ensure that none of the old data can be retrieved. You can either delete the partitions of the disk, erase the system disk, or configure the task to erase all the disks. You cannot perform an
Erase Disk
task for a disk that is connected through a USB or FireWire interface.
You access the Erase Disk task from
Manage > Jobs and Tasks
menu. In the
Jobs and Tasks
window, expand
System Jobs and Tasks
and right-click
Deployment > New > Task
option. In the
Create New Task
dialog box, access
Deployment > Erase Disk
.
  1. To erase a disk
  2. In the Symantec Management Console , from the
    Manage
    menu select
    Jobs and tasks
    .
  3. On the right pane, right-click
    Jobs and tasks
    and select
    New
    >
    Task
    .
  4. On the
    Create new task
    page, select
    Erase Disk
    .
  5. Specify a name for the task on the first field.
  6. Select one of the following options:
    Task name
    icon
    Lets you specify the name of the erase disk task.
    Disk selection
    Lets you select the disk partition from the drop-down list. You can select the disk number from the range 1 to 8, All disk, and System disk.
    In case, you select the System disk option, the remove partition section is disabled.
    Remove partitions
    Lets you remove the selected partitions of the disk.
    Select the disk partition from the drop-down list of the
    Disk selection
    option and check the
    Erase data
    check box.
    Erase disk
    Lets you select from the following options to erase disk:
    • Secure erase
      Select this option to erase data more than once.
      The following group of operations is performed on the hard drive six times:
      • All addressable locations are overwritten with 0x35.
      • All addressable locations are overwritten with 0xCA.
      • All addressable locations are overwritten with a pseudo-random character.
      • All addressable locations are verified in hardware using the Verify Sectors command to the disk.
    • Convert To
      Select this option to erase the selected disk and convert the partition of the client computer to the following type:
      • GPT
        Converts the client computer partition to GPT partition type.
      • MBR
        Converts the client computer partition type to MBR partition type.
    Using the
    Secure erase
    option, this task has a 36-hour timeout value on the task server. If this task runs on a client that has a hard disk larger than 375 GB, the task reports as failed on the task server. However, the task continues to run on the client until it completes.
  7. Click
    Ok
    .