path: root/README

NAME
	deadshred - override the contents of a device that may be broken

SYNOPSIS
	deadshred [-o offset] [-l length | -e postend] device [< random-source]

DESCRIPTION
	The deadshred utility fills a file or block devices with
	nonsense data. The utility is designed specifically for
	erasing the content of failing hard disc drives, for this
	purpose, the deadshred utility will skip any section it fails
	to override and retries it later.

OPTIONS
	The following options are supported:

	-e postend
		Position in the device to stop writing at. The byte
		indexed by the value postend will not be overwritten.

	-l length
		The number of bytes in the device to overwrite. If the
		-o option is unused (or the offset 0 is used), this is
		equivalent to the -e option, however the -o option is
		used, writing will stop at length bytes past offset.

	-o offset
		The index of the first byte in the device to overwrite.

OPERANDS
	The following operand is supported:

	file
		The file to override. Must be either a regular file or
		a block device.

STDIN
	Unless the standard input is a terminal device, it shall be an
	unless source of either random data or a particular byte to
	fill the device with.

NOTES
	While the deadshred utility is designed for block devices, it
	also works for regular files, however does not provide options
	that are useful for erasing regular files and is not designed
	to work with filesystems that use copy on write.

SEE ALSO
	dd(1), shred(1)