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Dangerous
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M

linux · bash · Intermediate

Writes zeros over the raw disk device, destroying the partition table and every filesystem on it. Note that the output target is a device rather than a file, which is the detail that separates this from a harmless test write.

Signals to notice

  • Writes directly to a block device
  • Overwrites the partition table
  • No confirmation prompt before it starts

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