06-06-2006
Make very clear before you use it.
Basically the first 512 bytes of the hard disk contain boot record and a partition table. If you delete it, you'll not be able to boot and of course all your partitions will be LOST. This will also work for any linux box.
In case you want to test it.. u better take a back up of 512 bytes .. and then restore it based on your requirement.
Here we go.
1. To take backup boot record and partition table:
dd if=/dev/rdsk/cNtNdN of=/bootblock.img bs=512 count=1
now copy the file bootblock.img somewhere safe i.e a floppy or another hard disk etc.
2 Now to delete it
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/cNtNdN bs=512 count=1
In case you want to wipe out everything.. just don't give the "count=1" let the command finish, it will take while based on the size of your disk.
Hope this is helpful
-Aditya
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HD(4) Linux Programmer's Manual HD(4)
NAME
hd - MFM/IDE hard disk devices
DESCRIPTION
The hd* devices are block devices to access MFM/IDE hard disk drives in raw mode. The master drive on the primary IDE controller (major
device number 3) is hda; the slave drive is hdb. The master drive of the second controller (major device number 22) is hdc and the slave
hdd.
General IDE block device names have the form hdX, or hdXP, where X is a letter denoting the physical drive, and P is a number denoting the
partition on that physical drive. The first form, hdX, is used to address the whole drive. Partition numbers are assigned in the order
the partitions are discovered, and only nonempty, nonextended partitions get a number. However, partition numbers 1-4 are given to the
four partitions described in the MBR (the "primary" partitions), regardless of whether they are unused or extended. Thus, the first logi-
cal partition will be hdX5. Both DOS-type partitioning and BSD-disklabel partitioning are supported. You can have at most 63 partitions
on an IDE disk.
For example, /dev/hda refers to all of the first IDE drive in the system; and /dev/hdb3 refers to the third DOS "primary" partition on the
second one.
They are typically created by:
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda b 3 0
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda1 b 3 1
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda2 b 3 2
...
mknod -m 660 /dev/hda8 b 3 8
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb b 3 64
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb1 b 3 65
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb2 b 3 66
...
mknod -m 660 /dev/hdb8 b 3 72
chown root:disk /dev/hd*
FILES
/dev/hd*
SEE ALSO
chown(1), mknod(1), sd(4), mount(8)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 1992-12-17 HD(4)