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
.- To erase a disk
- In the Symantec Management Console , from theManagemenu selectJobs and tasks.
- On the right pane, right-clickJobs and tasksand selectNew>Task.
- On theCreate new taskpage, selectErase Disk.
- Specify a name for the task on the first field.
- Select one of the following options:Task nameiconLets you specify the name of the erase disk task.Disk selectionLets 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 partitionsLets you remove the selected partitions of the disk.Select the disk partition from the drop-down list of theDisk selectionoption and check theErase datacheck box.Erase diskLets you select from the following options to erase disk:
- Secure eraseSelect 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 ToSelect this option to erase the selected disk and convert the partition of the client computer to the following type:
- GPTConverts the client computer partition to GPT partition type.
- MBRConverts the client computer partition type to MBR partition type.
Using theSecure eraseoption, 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. - ClickOk.