Rich,

The same question was posed in this list a few years back.  One of the
suggestions, at that time, was to place the drive into a special device class
and then build on it a dummy database with a large enough capacity to take up
the entire drive.  This relied on the fact that dbutil would initialize the
entire dataset to binary zeroes as part of the 'building' process.

Although I have not used it myself, the following 'schema' could be used,
provided the right capacity and blocking factor are used.

Regards
Paul Christidis

    $CONTROL NOLIST,ROOT,TABLE,LINES=60

    BEGIN DATA BASE erase;

    PASSWORDS:
        10 XXXXX;
        20 YYYYY;

    ITEMS:
       Dummy-Item       ,   2 x128;

    SETS:
       NAME:   Dummy-Set,      DETAIL (10/20), DummyDev;
       ENTRY:
             dummy-item      ;

       CAPACITY:   10000;   <<use approp. Cap>>   << Dummy-Set >>


END.


___________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    FW: Erase Data from Disks
Author: [log in to unmask]
Date:       9/21/99 2:20 PM

OK, let me be a little more specific. I want the disc as clean as possible
and still usable. This is not a top national security issue, even though you
would think it was by the way people carry on about privacy. If someone
wants to go through the hassle of reading every little bit trying to make
sense of it then so be it. I do have to admit the sledge hammer idea does
sound like a lot of fun.

Rich Holloway
Systems Administrator
Providence Health Plans
Phone: (503) 574-7457
Fax: (503) 574-8614
[log in to unmask]
http://www.providence.org

The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my company. They belong
solely to me.

If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. --
Mario Andretti