From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758225Ab0CNQCK (ORCPT ); Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:02:10 -0400 Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com ([206.248.154.183]:29408 "EHLO ironport2-out.pppoe.ca" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752532Ab0CNQCE (ORCPT ); Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:02:04 -0400 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: ApIBAM6lnEtLd/sX/2dsb2JhbAAHgwW/RI8FgTKBFIFLagQ X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.49,639,1262581200"; d="scan'208";a="58223378" Message-ID: <4B9D0879.5050809@teksavvy.com> Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:02:01 -0400 From: Mark Lord User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); en-GB; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100227 Thunderbird/3.0.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Greg Freemyer CC: Andrew Morton , foo saa , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, Jens Axboe , linux-mm@kvack.org Subject: Re: Linux kernel - Libata bad block error handling to user mode program References: <20100303224245.ae8d1f7a.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <87f94c371003040617t4a4fcd0dt1c9fc0f50e6002c4@mail.gmail.com> <4B8FC6AC.4060801@teksavvy.com> <87f94c371003111029s7c7daebgf691ab11e6bdda25@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <87f94c371003111029s7c7daebgf691ab11e6bdda25@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 03/11/10 13:29, Greg Freemyer wrote: >> >> But really.. isn't "hdparm --security-erase NULL /dev/sdX" good enough ??? >> > > This thread seems to have died off. If there is a real problem, I > hope it picks back up. > > Mark, as to your question the few times I've tried that the bios on > the test machine blocked the command. So it may have some specific > utility, but it's a not a generic solution in my mind. .. Yeah, a lot of BIOSs do a "SECURITY FREEZE" command before booting, which disables things like "SECURITY ERASE" until the next hard reset. So, on a Linux system, just unplug the drive after booting, replug it, and usually it can then be erased. But yeah.. that all makes things tricker for non-techies. Cheers