07. 06. 09
Some times it is very useful to boot from a Linux installation CD or DVD in order to use tools straight from the CD/DVD. You are not necessarily looking to install Linux but simply to make use of its low level software tools.
There are a number of ways to do this but I shall list just two as they are the most familiar to me.
1) Using the first CD or DVD from RedHat/Fedora/CentOS media :-
Set your BIOS to boot from your CD-ROM drive
When the boot process reaches the
boot> prompt, enter "linux rescue" and hit return, this will provide you with a number of boot options, choose the most basic as we don't need any networking functionality.
This will load linux into memory and provide access to the programs held on the CD/DVD.
The following command will allow you to wipe the beginning of your hard drive thus removing key information about anything held on the drive.
See below
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dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=50000
or
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=50000
depending on whether you have a SATA drive or an IDE drive respectively.
2) Boot from a Puppy Linux CD, start a terminal window then follow the same dd commands described above.
Upon begining an operating system installation it will appear that the hard drive is brand new and completely blank.
