This is diskerase v0.21,
a tool for erasing a harddisk (or partition) by writing a string on the entire
device. It's been programmed for the discovery of write actions done by
programs like fdisk, format, ... . - Especially the deeds of those operating
systems can be detected which are native enemies to Linux. -
Obviously, like badblocks -w, this tool erases data whithout any chance of
recovery. Don't use it on raw disks or partitions if you don't know what
information is stored there!

However, here are some examples:

1.) diskerase /dev/hda -s "abcd"
    erases the entire primary master ide drive. I.e. after this command has
    been executed the disk is "virgin" again. However, a new disk usually
    contains zeros while now the disk contains the bytes 0x61, 0x62, 0x63,
    0x64,  0x61, 0x62, ... . (This will cause fdisk to display some wired
    partitions, don't care, just delete them.) For writing zeros just hit
    diskerase /dev/hda.

2.) diskerase /dev/hda1 -s "1234"
    - hda1 is a primary partition  -
    erases the entire first partition of the primary master ide drive. It
    doesn't delete the partion entry like fdisk would do (the partition table
    isn't touched by diskerase in this case) but it erases the data inside the
    partition, i.e. its boot sector and its filesystem.

3.) diskerase /dev/hda4 -s "1234"
    - hda4 is a secondary partition -
    erases the information on the placement of the first two logical drives of
    this partition and thus the information on the placement of all its logical
    drives. The data in its logical drives remains untouched.

4.) diskerase /dev/hda5 -s "1234"
    - hda5 is a logical drive -
    erases the "boot sector" and the filesystem in this partition. The
    partition information remains untouched.

==> To destroy all filesystems irreversibly, so that nobody will be able to
    recover a single data byte afterwords (neither data from the fs nor
    information on the filesystem previously used), you may do as told
    in 1.), but you have to erase at least all primary partitions and all
    logical drives.
==> All partitioning information remains untouched if only primary partitions
    and/or logical partitions are erased.
==> To destroy all partitioning information irreversibly you have to erase
    the entire disk (see 1.).
