Perform a Zero Fill Using a Linux Live CD

Download and Burn a Ubuntu Image

1. Load the Ubuntu web site, and then click on Download Ubuntu.
2. Select your Download location from the drop-down menu, and click Begin Download.

3. When the download starts, click Save.

4. When the disk image is done downloading, burn it to a CD.

Loading Ubuntu

1. Once you’ve burned the CD and verified that it works, reboot your PC from the CD rather than from your hard drive.
2. When Ubuntu boots, you will be prompted to choose a language from the menu. Choose English or whatever language you are most comfortable with.

3. The main Ubuntu menu will load. Choose Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer.

4. The Ubuntu desktop will load.

Perform Zero Fill

1. Click on Applications, Accessories, and then Terminal.

2. The Terminal window will load.

3. Choose the hard drive you would like to zero fill. Type sudo fdisk -l and a list of all of the drives and partitions on the system will be displayed.

4. Use the shred command to zero fill the partition of your choice. If you wanted to do two zero fill passes on the partition you would type sudo shred -n 2 -z -v /dev/sdc1 where -n 2 is the number of passes, -z overwrites the data with zeroes, -v displays the progress of the operation, and /dev/sdc1 is the partition you are overwriting. Hit Enter to begin the process.
5. Ubuntu will display the progress of the operation and let you know when it is completed.