Unpartitioning Hard drives

[voyagerxp]

Hi guy I've got 3 4tb hard drives that were used in a FreeNAS setup but not needed so I want to reuse them in another project but can't get them to format or unpartition. How can I remove FreeNAS from the drives?

 

[danb35]

gpart destroy /dev/ada0 (or whichever drive identifier is appropriate) should do it.

 

[wblock]

What is left on the drives is a GPT partition format. If you still have the FreeNAS system, there is a Wipe option when you use Storage -> Volumes -> Detach Volume. There is also a Wipe option under View Disks, which has a Quick checkbox that will get just the first and last of the disk where the partition tables are located. The command @danb35 gives will work, but the GEOM system will stop it from working unless the volume has been detached. And it needs a -F option after the destroy command, or it will refuse to erase the partition information if any partitions are defined.

Otherwise, it depends on the tools available. These vary greatly with operating system. Windows has some pretty miserable disk partitioning tools which can probably do this. Linux is still getting into the GPT partitioning, so some things work with GPT and some do not. GParted might be the easiest graphical way. I often use mfsBSD, a live version of FreeBSD which boots from a USB stick, runs in memory, and has the same gpart command mentioned above.

 

[Johnnie Black]

It's also quite easy with Windows:

open a command line prompt as admin then type:

diskpart
list disk
select disk #
clean

Done

 

[joeschmuck]

There is one other way, you could use a clean cotton rag and a little elbow grease and scrub those babies clean. (Note: You cannot use any other grease, it must be elbow grease.) Use up/down motion since the data was recorded in a circular motion, this will result in the best cleaning. Do all six sides of the hard drive. If this fails to work, do the process over again and use a little more elbow grease. You can buy elbow grease in the hardware section of Walmart, they had a sale on it a few weeks ago. :D

EDIT: Sorry, woke up in a funny mood.