mediainit(1) Command

The mediainit(1) command initializes mass storage media by formatting the media, writing and reading test patterns to verify media integrity, then sparing any defective blocks found. This process prepares the disk or tape for error-free operation. Initialization destroys all existing user data in the area being initialized.

Summary of Change

The mediainit(1) command has been enhanced to provide a scrubbing feature for disk devices. When this feature is used, the command scrubs the disk media content with a set of patterns so that retrieval of its content becomes more difficult.

This feature supports three options -S, -c and -t. The -c and -t options have to be used along with -S.

With -S option, the command scrubs the media 3 times (first scrubs with a character, then scrubs with complement of the character and then with a random number).
With option -c, user can select the character to be written. Then the command first scrubs with the user-given character, then scrubs with complement of the character and then with a random number.
With option -t, user can specify number of scrubs. If the -t option is used along with -S and -c then the command scrubs the media with the given character for number of iterations mentioned with -t.

Impact

With this scrubbing feature, you can now make the retrieval of content from disk media more difficult.

Compatibility

There are no known compatibility issues.

Performance

There are no known performance issues.

Documentation

For additional information, see the manpage mediainit(1).

Obsolescence

Not applicable.