The only way to totally destroy them is to physically remove the tape from the cart. and cut it up, shred it, etc. When I worked for the Govt. we used to test ways to recover data from tapes that had been "fried" and it was not fool-proof.
Dave
>No need to get high-tech, park 'em next to a large magnet for a few seconds.
>
>Ed.
>
>Ben Ostrowsky wrote:
>
>> I've got several dozen DDS tapes that I'd like to throw out. Before I
>> do that, however, I'd like to make it non-trivial to read the data
>> currently on them.
>>
>> I can't seem to figure out bcwipe; it works on files and block devices.
>> I'm not sure what a block device is, but dmesg says "Attached scsi tape
>> st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 6, lun 0".
>>
>> [root@snoopy /tmp]# bcwipe -v -b /dev/st0
>> Wipe /dev/st0 (y/[n]/a)?y
>> Wiping device /dev/st0
>> Writing to /dev/st0: Input/output error
>>
>> Perhaps it's not a block device:
>>
>> crw-rw---- 1 root disk 9, 0 Mar 23 2001 /dev/st0
>>
>> Any ideas how I can wipe these tapes? I don't have easy access to an
>> MRI or a mile of copper wire, and I'd rather not trust the demagnetizer
>> at the library -- it's not designed for this.
>>
>> I've been told that writing from /dev/urandom until the tape fills up
>> would do the trick, but I don't even know how to do that!
>>
>> Haaaaalp!
>>
>> Ben
>>
>>
>>
>
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