ESX Drive Formatting

[Dinty]

I have some old drives (XP O/S) that I would now like to use for ESX. What is the best way to do a comprehensive format in ESX such that the old data has been erased?

Thanks.

[avlieshout]

AFAIK creating an ESX Datastore erases the existing partitions.

-Arnim van Lieshout

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[john23]

Ya, if you want to create vmfs volume or ESX ,you need to format.

-@m!t

[Dinty]

Sure, this erases the partitions but I was looking for something more complete. Something more akin to what Windows server offers during installation (NTFS full format).

[mcowger]

No such thing is required or possible during install.

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

[Chuck8773]

If you really want to nuke the disk prior to install, check out http://www.dban.org/.

We use this to wipe any disks before they leave our datacenter.

Charles Killmer, VCP

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[Dinty]

What about after install from the VIC console?

[mcowger · Accepted solution]

There is no concept of a 'full' format for VMFS.

If you REALLY wanted to, from the system console (not the GUI), you could do something like:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

to wipe the whole disk sdX before you reformat it, but its 100% unnecessary and a waste of time. Will not improve performance or anything else.

--M