Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Fernando Cassia <fcassia@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 18:55, Alan Cox <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> No another meaningless option that wouldn't actually do anything. >> >> If you want to blank a drive into a new file system format you just need >> to be sure to clean up any confusing superblocks and get the type right. >> For the same fs you will hit the metadata anyway. >> >> And if you want to blank a disk you need to issue a security erase >> command, not just overwrite the data. The latter does not do what you >> would always want on modern storage systems, particularly flash. >> >> Alan > > Yes "blank a drive" aka "formatting" it. > With the same file system it previously had. (fat32). as i understand it, formatting a drive doesn't necessarily overwrite the whole disk & blanking (erasing) it is too expensive for a default formatting. and Alan was perhaps too subtle- flash does funny things when you write to it. > > Doesn´t need to be a "full format", a "quick format" would do. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686 notice that in both cases, files are 'removed from the volume', not erased. > > So, I maintain my original comment... I think it should be possible > from the Gnome GUI to right click and select an option to "format" the > drive (who partitions a thumb drive?? 99.9999% are used in a > single-partition mode) this would be handy- but would probably be limited to vfat... > Hey, look here > http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/disk-format.html.en > > "If you have a removable disk like a USB memory stick or an external > hard disk, you may wish to completely remove all of the files you have > on there. You can do this by formatting the disk - this deletes all of > the files on the disk and leaves it empty." delete- not erase. and certainly does not leave it empty- an empty drive has no format. > > Wow, plain English. No misconceptions about what formatting means. :) > > So let me rephrase my original post: on removable drives, shouldn´t > there be a "Format" option (or "wipe" if you wish) that invokes ´disk > utility´ with the right params to beggin formatting it?. with a prompt for the root password. > > FC > -- > users mailing list > users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe or change subscription options: > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users > Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > charles zeitler -- Love is the law, love under will. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines