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#### For the 32 bit version of ShredOS that will run on both 32bit and 64bit processors, see [ShredOS i686](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.i686)
| Latest x86_64 64 bit version | v0.31 | [](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/releases/latest) | [.img 64bit](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64/releases/download/v2020.05.012_x86-64_0.31/shredos-2020.05.012_x86-64_0.31_20210607.img) | [.iso 64bit legacy boot](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64/releases/download/v2020.05.012_x86-64_0.31/shredos-2020.05.012_x86-64_0.31_20210612_legacy_bios.iso) |
| Latest i686 32 bit version | v0.30.001 | [](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.i686/releases/latest) | [.img 32bit](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.i686/releases/download/v2020.02.008_i686-0.30.001/shredos-2020.05.008_i686_0.30.001_20210127.img) | Not available yet |
Note: The .img files for burning to USB flash drives support both bios/UEFI booting. The .iso image currently supports legacy bios booting only and not UEFI, however, a bios/UEFI version of the .iso is in development and will be released shortly.
1. [What do I do after I've erased everything on my disk? What is actually erased?](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64#what-do-i-do-after-ive-erased-everything-on-my-disk-what-is-actually-erased)
1. [Obtaining and writing ShredOS to a USB flash drive - The easy way!](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#obtaining-and-writing-shredos-to-a-usb-flash-drive-the-easy-way-)
1. [Linux and MAC users](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02#linux-and-mac-users)
1. [How to run nwipe so you can specify nwipe command line options](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#how-to-run-nwipe-so-you-can-specify-nwipe-command-line-options)
1. [How to change the default nwipe options so the change persists between reboots](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#how-to-change-the-default-nwipe-options-so-the-change-persists-between-reboots)
1. [How to set the keyboard map using the loadkeys command (see here for persistent change between reboots](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#how-to-set-the-keyboard-map-using-the-loadkeys-command-see-here-for-persistent-change-between-reboots)
1. [How to make a persistent change to keyboard maps](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#how-to-make-a-persistent-change-to-keyboard-maps)
1. [Reading and saving nwipes log files](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#reading-and-saving-nwipes-log-files)
1. [The latest ShredOS now includes the following](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#the-latest-shredos-now-includes-the-following)
1. [Compiling shredos and burning to USB stick, the harder way!](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#compiling-shredos-and-burning-to-usb-stick-the-harder-way-)
1. [Shredos is based on buildroot](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#shredos-is-based-on-buildroot)
disks using the program [nwipe](https://github.com/martijnvanbrummelen/nwipe). If you are familiar with dwipe from DBAN then you will feel right at home with ShredOS and nwipe. What are the advantages of nwipe over dwipe/DBAN? Well as everybody probably knows, DBAN development stopped in 2015 which means it has not received any further bug fixes or support for new hardware since that date. Nwipe originally was a fork of dwipe but has continued to have improvements and bug fixes and is now available in many Linux distros. ShredOS hopefully will always provide the latest nwipe on a up to date Linux kernel so it will support modern hardware.
ShredOS supports either 32bit or 64bit processors. You will need to download the appropriate 64bit or 32bit .img or .iso file, depending upon your target processor and whether you want to burn ShredOS to a USB memory stick, in which case you would download the .img file. Alternatively, if you wanted to burn ShredOS to CD/DVD, then you would download the .iso file.
Shredos includes the latest Nwipe official release, but in addition includes other disc related utilities such as Smartmontools, hdparm and a hexeditor [hexedit](https://linux.die.net/man/1/hexedit). Nwipe automatically starts it's GUI in the first virtual terminal (ALT-F1), hdparm, smartmontools and hexeditor can be run in the second virtual terminal, (ALT-F2). Nwipe will erase drives using a user selectable choice of seven methods. hdparm, amongst many of its options can be used for wiping a drive by using the drives internal firmware. The program loadkeys can be used for setting the keyboard type. i.e. loadkeys uk, loadkeys fr etc.
ShredOS boots very quickly and depending upon the host system can boot in as little as 2 seconds (typically 4 to 6 seconds) on modern hardware, while on an old Pentium4 may take 40+ seconds. Nwipe automatically starts in GUI mode and will list the disks present on the host system. In fact, Nwipe can launch so fast that the USB devices have not yet initialised so the first time nwipe appears it may not show any USB drives. If you then use Control-C to exit and restart nwipe, you should now see any attached USB devices. You can then select the methods by which you want to securely erase the disk/s. Nwipe is able to simultanuosly wipe multiple disks using a threaded software architecture. I have simultaneously wiped 28 loop devices in tests and know of instances where it's been used to wipe upwards of 10 drives on a system.
The vanilla version of ShredOS boots into nwipe's GUI and shows the available discs that can then be selected for wiping. It does not autonuke your discs at launch, however it is capable of doing that, if you edit the grub.cfg file and specify the appropriate nwipe command line option. Details of configuring nwipe's launch behaviour is shown below [How to run nwipe so you can specify nwipe command line options](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#how-to-run-nwipe-so-you-can-specify-nwipe-command-line-options)
This paragraph is for those that are not familiar with wiping discs. if you know what you are doing skip to the next section. So you have erased your disc with ShredOS/nwipe and nwipe reported zero errors and the disc was erased. In it's erased state and depending upon the method you used every block on the drive contains either zero's or meaningless random data. In this state the disc won't be recognised by your operating system except at a very low level or by specialised programs. You won't be able to write files to the disc because nwipe has removed everything, absolutely everything, the operating system is gone, all your data is gone, the partition table is gone, the file system gone, the MBR and all the files have been erased without a trace and will never ever be recovered from the disk. The only thing left is a whole load of zeros or random data. To make the disc usable again you will either need to format the disk, which creates a partition table and directory structure or install a new operating system such as Linux or Windows. Of course, if you are just disposing of or reselling the disk then you don't need to do anything else. So if you are reasonably happy that you know what you are doing and you understand that you will need to format the disc then I hope this software does it's job and is useful to you. Before you press that 'S' key to start the wipe, pause and double check you have selected the correct drive/s, something I always do !
You can of course compile shredos from source but that can take a long time and you can run into all sorts of problems if your not familiar with compiling an operating system. So if you just want to get started with using shredos and nwipe then just download the shredos image file and write it to a USB flash drive. Please note this will over write the existing contents of your USB flash drive.
Download shredos for 64 bit processors from [here](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64/releases/download/v2020.05.012_x86-64_0.31/shredos-2020.05.012_x86-64_0.31_20210607.img)
Download shredos for 32 bit processors (also runs on 64 bit processors) from [here](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.i686/releases/download/v2020.02.005_i686-0.30.001/shredos-20210106.img)
If the image file has a .img.tar.gz extension then use the following commands to extract the .img file. If the file extension simply ends with .img and there is no tar.gz then skip this step.
If you are using linux or a MAC write the shredos.img file (also sometimes called shredos-2020MMDD.img i.e. shredos-20200418.img etc) to your USB flash drive using the following command. (/dev/sdx is the device name of your USB drive, this can be obtained from the results of sudo fdisk -l)
If you are a windows user, use a program such as [Rufus](https://rufus.ie/) or [etcher](https://www.balena.io/etcher/) to write the image file to a USB stick, remembering that the entire contents of the USB flash drive will be overwritten. [Winzip](https://www.winzip.com/win/en/) be used to extract the shredos.img file from the compressed shredos.img.tar.gz file that you downloaded. [hashtab](http://implbits.com/products/hashtab/) can be downloaded and used to confirm the sha1 checksum.
ShredOS has three tty terminals, ALT-F1 (Where nwipe is initially launched), ALT-F2 (A virtual terminal), ALT-F3 (console log, login required which is root with no password).
## How to run nwipe so you can specify nwipe command line options
The version of nwipe that runs in the default terminal will automatically restart when you exit it, either at the end of a wipe or using CONTROL-C to abort. So if you want to run nwipe in the traditional way, along with any command line options you require, then use the second terminal ALT-F2, as an example, you could then use the command ```nwipe --nousb --logfile=nwipe.log``` etc. If you do use ALT-F2 to run a second copy of nwipe, please remember that if you already have one copy of nwipe wiping, the second copy of nwipe will hang on starting. Therefore nwipe in the default terminal should be left at the drive selection screen to prevent the second occurence of nwipe from hanging. Alternatively, a second occurrence of nwipe could be started by specifying the drive on the command line as long as that drive is not already being wiped by the first instance of nwipe, i.e.```nwipe /dev/sdc``` etc.
## How to change the default nwipe options so the change persists between reboots
To change the default settings of nwipe you will need to place the nwipe options required on the kernel command line in /boot/grub/grub.cfg and /EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg
Example of default grub.cfg
```
set default="0"
set timeout="0"
menuentry "shredos" {
linux /boot/shredos console=tty3 loglevel=3
}
```
Adding nwipe_options="..." to grub.cfg to make the default nwipe start up with zero method, no verification, no blanking, ignore USB devices and automatically power off the computer at the end of the wipe.
```
set default="0"
set timeout="0"
menuentry "shredos" {
linux /boot/shredos console=tty3 loglevel=3 nwipe_options="--method=zero --verify=off --noblank --nousb --autopoweroff"
You are not only limited to nwipe options, you can also specify devices along with those options. As would be the case when using nwipe from the command line, the devices to be wiped come after the options, as shown in the example below.
For reference and as of nwipe version 0.30, listed below are all the options that you can use with nwipe and can place on the kernel command line in grub.cfg as described in the examples above.
## How to set the keyboard map using the loadkeys command (see [here](https://github.com/PartialVolume/shredos.2020.02/blob/master/README.md#how-to-make-a-persistent-change-to-keyboard-maps) for persistent change between reboots)
You can set the type of keyboard that you are using by typing, `loadkeys uk`, `loadkeys us`, `loadkeys fr`, `loadkeys cf`, `loadkeys by`, `loadkeys cf`, `loadkeys cz` etc. See /usr/share/keymaps/i386/ for full list of keymaps. However you will need to add an entry to `loadkeys=uk` etc to grub.cfg for a persistent change between reboots.
linux /boot/shredos console=tty3 loglevel=3 loadkeys=uk
}
```
## Reading and saving nwipes log files
The nwipe that is automatically launched in the first virtual terminal ALT-F1, creates a log file that contains the details of the wipe/s and a summary table that shows successfull erasure or failure. The file is time stamped within it's name. A new timestamped log file is created each time nwipe is started. The files can be found in the / directory. A example being nwipe_log_20200418-084910.txt. As currently, shredos does not have persistent storage, if you want to keep these files between reboots of shredos, you will need to manually copy them to the USB stick as follows:
1. Locate the device name of your USB stick from it's model & size.
For Linux: If the | character isn't displayed properly use loadkeys fr etc to select the correct keyboard if not US qwerty prior to running this pipe command.
## ShredOS includes the following related programs
#### smartmontools
Nwipes ability to detect serial numbers on USB devices now works on USB bridges who's chipset supports that functionality.Smartmontools provides nwipe with that capability. Smartmontools can be used in the second or third virtual terminal. ALT-F2 and ALT-F3.
#### hexedit
Use hexedit to examine and modify the contents of a hard disk. Hexedit can be used in the second or third virtual terminal. ALT-F2 and ALT-F3.
hdparm has many uses and is a powerfull tool. Although Nwipe will be adding ATA secure erase capability, i.e using the hard disk own firmware to initiate an erase, nwipe currently wipes drives using the traditional method of writing to every block. If you want to initiate a ATA secure erase using the drives firmware then hdparm will be of use.
