Request for Ideas for new features?

[PartialVolume]

These are my proposed new features for ShredOS, one feature per comment, so you can upvote it with a thumbs up if you think it would be useful. Please feel free to add your own comments and ideas regarding features you would like to see.

HPA/DSO Hidden area detection

Hidden area detection and correction, DSO reset to factory default will be added to nwipe's code.

---

[COMPLETED] Code is in master and will be released in v0.35

[PartialVolume]

Write logs to USB device

Much like DBAN 2.3.0 does

---

[COMPLETED] Is available in release v2021.08.2_23_x86-64_0.34 and later releases

[PartialVolume]

Write logs to a remote server using SSH

or FTP/SFTP

[PartialVolume]

Create one CSV file per wiped drive containing details of wipe

Could also include smart data.

[PartialVolume]

Write a ShredOS Monitor that runs in a browser on Windows/Linux/Mac/Andoid/Iphone.

This would receive live progress data from all the ShredOS systems that are running on a network and would therefore notify you when a wipe is complete. In theory it could also generate PDF certificates per drive or print labels for sticking on erased drives.

[PartialVolume]

ShredOS for Raspberry Pi 4

For wiping USB V3 connected drives.

Why wipe discs with Raspberry Pi4s? Well one reason is the incredibly low power they consume compared to a PC. A modern I5 low end PC may consume 25W, while older PCs may consume 200-300 watts. If you are wiping discs 24/7 that will cost you something like £300 (UK) per annum assuming you are paying £0.14 per KW/hr. A Raspberry Pi4 consumes about 5 watts, excluding the drive and it's PSU. Your electricity bill may be substantially reduced with the right hardware !

[PartialVolume]

Language support?

[ZigZagJoe]

I personally find badblocks a very useful program to have to hand for testing drives for re-use. Just having the program itself in the distro would be useful to me.

In the long run, I could see it being incorporated as another wipe mode in nwipe.

[PartialVolume]

If it's not already included, I'll add with the next release this weekend.

Nwipe already detects bad blocks when verifying, however unlike badblocks you can't define your own pattern. Also unlike badblocks, nwipe can't do a non destructive bad block test.

[PartialVolume]

@PartialVolume A reminder for me.. It doesn't look like badblocks is available in buildroot, badblocks is a utility within the e2fsprogs package, however it looks like buildroot only includes debugfs, e2image, e4defrag, fsck, fuse2fs, resize2fs but not badblocks.

In which case to get the full compliment of utilities in e2fsprogs, I'll need to create a package and pull it in and compile from here https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/snapshot/e2fsprogs-1.45.6.tar.gz

[hameau]

ATA Secure Erase (see also: martijnvanbrummelen/nwipe#101, martijnvanbrummelen/nwipe#282).

Either as a function of nwipe, or (probably more easily implemented) scripted hdparm. Unfreezing a drive with

echo -n mem > /sys/power/state

is reliable, in my experience. It happens early in the process – indeed, it could be the first action of a script – and it wouldn't be too onerous to echo instructions to the user, then put the test machine to sleep. On waking, finish the process. The whole thing only takes a few minutes on an SSD.

Alternatively, perhaps rtcwake could be used to wake from sleep after a short delay?

[PartialVolume]

@hameau implementing the ATA secure erase command and HDA detection are top of the to do list for me. After first making the help bar responsive to screen width so I can add two more hot keys. Control-A=Select All, which is already implemented but maybe is not known about and i=info that will display additional drive info and when in manual mode (non autonuke) allow you to make decisions about whether hidden areas are deleted, i.e drive size restored to what it should be.

I like the idea of optionally sending the system to sleep while the disc does its ATA secure erase and bringing it back awake to optionally do a verification. Anything that reduces electricity consumption is a good idea.

[hameau]

I like the idea of optionally sending the system to sleep while the disc does its ATA secure erase and bringing it back awake to optionally do a verification. Anything that reduces electricity consumption is a good idea.

Sorry, I didn't explain well (I'm thinking in terms of scripting hdparm commands). Unfreezing the drive requires putting the machine to sleep (by manipulating /sys/power/state), but it's necessary to manually wake it up again before continuing the ATA Secure Erase. I wondered if rtcwake might be able to automate the sleep/wake part, so not requiring any manual intervention after selecting the drive(s) and pressing 'Go'.

Automating sleep/wake would avoid:

• Having to explain that the machine will go to sleep, but must be manually woken to continue the job (in several translations);
• The flood of bug reports ('I tried to run the ATA Secure Erase option, but it just puts my computer to sleep.').

Putting the machine to sleep for the duration of ATA Secure Erase might be possible, but I've no idea how to detect that the drive has finished. You couldn't do it on a timer – a small to medium SSD takes a couple of minutes, but a spinning drive takes just as long as a full drive fill, so up to many hours. Can you put the system to sleep but (reliably? universally?) maintain power on the drives? I'd avoid that can of worms, even if it appears attractive.

[PartialVolume]

Unfreezing the drive requires putting the machine to sleep (by manipulating /sys/power/state), but it's necessary to manually wake it up again before continuing the ATA Secure Erase.

Wiping discs with the ATA secure erase command is something I've never done, but now you mention the sleep, wake cycle I remember the process from nwipe comments.

I need to try wiping a few drives first using various different methods and then see if it could be successfully implemented in nwipe. To me, the whole ATA secure erase thing does look like a whole can of worms. Just reading this where it mentions bricking your disc if you enter a blank password is enough to make you think twice about the whole process.

[hameau]

To me, the whole ATA secure erase thing does look like a whole can of worms. Just reading this where it mentions bricking your disc if you enter a blank password is enough to make you think twice about the whole process.

There are caveats and gotchas to any process. (Also bear in mind, we're not talking about, for example, critical data recovery – we want to destroy the drive contents). Anyway, none of those red-text warnings in your kernel wiki reference are unrecoverable, including the null (not blank) password recovery.

And this is the whole point of scripting the process, to avoid accidentally making fat-finger mistakes and mitigating many of the potential problems. The password doesn't have to be a one-time-use secret and can be hardcoded to something easy to reuse in the event of a problem. I always use Pass when reinitialising SSDs.

It would probably be a good idea to test for a USB adapter and prevent ATA Secure Erase in this case. At best, USB adapters are likely to fail to pass the ATA command; at worst they may require some sort of recovery process to get the drive back into service. Best avoided, imo.

I wondered if rtcwake might be able to automate the sleep/wake part, so not requiring any manual intervention after selecting the drive(s) and pressing 'Go'.

Good news and bad news:

The Good news: rtcwake -m mem -s 5 (for example – the delay may need to be a bit longer for some machines) will put the machine to sleep and wake it after 5 seconds, successfully unfreezing the drive without user intervention (switching back on from sleep). (Tested on a sample size of 1 – HP EliteBook 840 G1.)

The Bad news: shredos-2020.05.006 fails to restart the framebuffer (I think) on waking from sleep (black screen on wake). This is the case for rtcwake and echo -n mem > /sys/power/state in shredos. The system does wake – the CapsLock light works and blind-typing poweroff will shut the machine down. I have no idea what's missing, but waking from both rtcwake and echo -n mem > /sys/power/state works as expected in, for example, SystemRescue-CD v5.3.2.

[PartialVolume]

The Bad news: shredos-2020.05.006 fails to restart the framebuffer (I think) on waking from sleep (black screen on wake). This is the case for rtcwake and echo -n mem > /sys/power/state in shredos. The system does wake – the CapsLock light works and blind-typing poweroff will shut the machine down. I have no idea what's missing, but waking from both rtcwake and echo -n mem > /sys/power/state works as expected in, for example, SystemRescue-CD v5.3.2.

I'll check this out and get back to you.

[PartialVolume]

Would it be possible to bundle some of the common raid adapter tools, e.g. megacli, for breaking RAID and re-configuring the disks as RAID0 or single prior to wiping?

Well I've taken a quick look at megacli, which seems to be obsoleted by storcli. 32 & 64 bit binaries are available and having read through the license agreement I would have to write some sort of install procedure as I would need you to read & agree to their personal license agreement. Unfortunately they have not made these tools opensource.

Having said that I downloaded the MegaCli64 binary contained within https://hwraid.le-vert.net/debian/sources/megacli/megacli_8.07.14.orig.tar.gz and copied it onto the shredos USB stick. Then booted ShredOS, manually mounted the USB stick and then ran ./MegaCli64 and got a error complaining about missing libncurses.so.5. The latest ShredOS uses libncurses.so.6.

So I copied /usr/lib/libncurses.so.6 to /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5 and now MegaCli64 runs. Of courses I don't know how it uses ncurses. Anyway unfortunately I can't test it to list drives as I don't have any LSI raid hardware. It may be that storcli is build against libncurses.so.6 which would solve that problem.

Maybe you would like to give the above a try and see if ./MegaCli64 works for you on your raid hardware.

Here's the MegaCli64 binary running on ShredOS displaying it's help text.

# ./MegaCli64 -help

      MegaCLI SAS RAID Management Tool  Ver 8.07.14 Dec 16, 2013

    (c)Copyright 2013, LSI Corporation, All Rights Reserved.


NOTE: The following options may be given at the end of any command below: 

    [-Silent] [-AppLogFile filename] [-NoLog] [-page[N]] 
                 [-] is optional. 
                  N - Number of lines per page. 

MegaCli -v 
MegaCli -help|-h|? 
MegaCli -adpCount 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp {CacheFlushInterval -val} | { RebuildRate -val} 
    | {PatrolReadRate -val} | {BgiRate -val} | {CCRate -val} | {ForceSGPIO -val}
    | {ReconRate -val} | {SpinupDriveCount -val} | {SpinupDelay -val} 
    | {CoercionMode -val} | {ClusterEnable -val} | {PredFailPollInterval -val} 
    | {BatWarnDsbl -val} | {EccBucketSize -val} | {EccBucketLeakRate -val} 
    | {AbortCCOnError -val} | AlarmEnbl | AlarmDsbl | AlarmSilence 
    | {SMARTCpyBkEnbl -val} | {SSDSMARTCpyBkEnbl -val} | NCQEnbl | NCQDsbl 
    | {MaintainPdFailHistoryEnbl -val} | {RstrHotSpareOnInsert -val} 
    | {DisableOCR -val} | {BootWithPinnedCache -val} | {enblPI -val} |{PreventPIImport -val} 
    | AutoEnhancedImportEnbl | AutoEnhancedImportDsbl 
    | {EnblSpinDownUnConfigDrvs -val}|{UseDiskActivityforLocate -val} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
    | {ExposeEnclDevicesEnbl -val} | {SpinDownTime -val} 
    | {SpinUpEncDrvCnt -val} | {SpinUpEncDelay -val} | {Perfmode -val} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
    | {PerfMode -val �MaxFlushLines -val �NumIOsToOrder -val} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -AutoDetectBackPlaneDsbl -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=Enable Auto Detect of SGPIO and i2c SEP. 
             1=Disable Auto Detect of SGPIO. 
             2=Disable Auto Detect of i2c SEP. 
             3=Disable Auto Detect of SGPIO and i2c SEP. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -CopyBackDsbl -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=Enable Copyback. 
             1=Disable Copyback. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -EnableJBOD -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=Disable JBOD mode. 
             1=Enable JBOD mode. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -DsblCacheBypass -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=Enable Cache Bypass. 
             1=Disable Cache Bypass. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -LoadBalanceMode -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=Auto Load balance mode. 
             1=Disable Load balance mode. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -UseFDEOnlyEncrypt -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=FDE and controller encryption (if HW supports) is allowed. 
             1=Only support FDE encryption, disallow controller encryption. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -PrCorrectUncfgdAreas -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0= Correcting Media error during PR is disabled. 
             1=Correcting Media error during PR is allowed. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -DsblSpinDownHSP -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0= Spinning down the Hot Spare is enabled. 
             1=Spinning down the Hot Spare is disabled. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -DefaultLdPSPolicy -Automatic| -None | -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -DisableLdPS -interval n1 -time n2 -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       where n1 is the number of hours beginning at time n2 
       where n2 is the number of minutes from 12:00am 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -ENABLEEGHSP -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
	   val - 0= Disabled Emergency GHSP. 
			 1= Enabled Emergency GHSP. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -ENABLEEUG -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
	   val - 0= Disabled Emergency UG as Spare. 
			 1= Enabled Emergency UG as Spare. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -ENABLEESMARTER -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
	   val - 0= Disabled Emergency Spare as Smarter. 
			 1= Enabled Emergency Spare as Smarter. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -DPMenable -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=Disable Drive Performance Monitoring . 
             1=Enable Drive Performance Monitoring. 
MegaCli -AdpSetProp -SupportSSDPatrolRead -val -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
       val - 0=Disable Patrol read for SSD drives . 
             1=Enable Patrol read for SSD drives. 
MegaCli -AdpGetProp CacheFlushInterval | RebuildRate | PatrolReadRate | ForceSGPIO
    | BgiRate | CCRate | ReconRate | SpinupDriveCount | SpinupDelay 
    | CoercionMode | ClusterEnable | PredFailPollInterval | BatWarnDsbl 
    | EccBucketSize | EccBucketLeakRate | EccBucketCount | AbortCCOnError 
    | AlarmDsply | SMARTCpyBkEnbl | SSDSMARTCpyBkEnbl | NCQDsply 
    | MaintainPdFailHistoryEnbl | RstrHotSpareOnInsert 
    | EnblSpinDownUnConfigDrvs  | DisableOCR 
    | BootWithPinnedCache | enblPI  |PreventPIImport | AutoEnhancedImportDsply | AutoDetectBackPlaneDsbl 
    | CopyBackDsbl | LoadBalanceMode | UseFDEOnlyEncrypt | WBSupport | EnableJBOD 
    | DsblCacheBypass | ExposeEnclDevicesEnbl | SpinDownTime | PrCorrectUncfgdAreas 
    | UseDiskActivityforLocate | ENABLEEGHSP | ENABLEEUG | ENABLEESMARTER | Perfmode | PerfModeValues 
    | -DPMenable -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
    | DefaultLdPSPolicy | DisableLdPsInterval | DisableLdPsTime | SpinUpEncDrvCnt 
    | SpinUpEncDelay | PrCorrectUncfgdAreas 
    | DsblSpinDownHSP | SupportSSDPatrolRead -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpAllInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpGetTime -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpSetTime yyyymmdd hh:mm:ss -aN   
MegaCli -AdpSetVerify -f fileName -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBIOS -Enbl |-Dsbl | -SOE | -BE |  -HCOE | - HSM | EnblAutoSelectBootLd | DsblAutoSelectBootLd | -Dsply -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpBootDrive {-Set {-Lx | -physdrv[E0:S0]}} | {-Unset {-Lx | -physdrv[E0:S0]}} |-Get -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpAutoRbld -Enbl|-Dsbl|-Dsply -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -AdpCacheFlush -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -AdpPR -Dsbl|EnblAuto|EnblMan|Start|Suspend|Resume|Stop|Info|SSDPatrolReadEnbl |SSDPatrolReadDsbl  
         |{SetDelay Val}|{-SetStartTime yyyymmdd hh}|{maxConcurrentPD Val} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -AdpCcSched -Dsbl|-Info|{-ModeConc | -ModeSeq [-ExcludeLD -LN|-L0,1,2]
   [-SetStartTime yyyymmdd hh ] [-SetDelay val ] } -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -AdpCcSched -SetStartTime yyyymmdd hh -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -AdpCcSched -SetDelay val  -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -FwTermLog -BBUoff|BBUoffTemp|BBUon|BBUGet|Dsply|Clear -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -AdpAlILog -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpDiag [val] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
          val - Time in second.
MegaCli -AdpGetPciInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpShutDown -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -AdpDowngrade -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -PDList -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDGetNum -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -pdInfo -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -PDOnline  -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDOffline -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDMakeGood -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] | [-Force] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDMakeJBOD -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDHSP {-Set [-Dedicated [-ArrayN|-Array0,1,2...]] [-EnclAffinity] [-nonRevertible]} 
     |-Rmv -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDRbld -Start|-Stop|-Suspend|-Resume|-ShowProg |-ProgDsply 
        -PhysDrv [E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -PDClear -Start|-Stop|-ShowProg |-ProgDsply 
        -PhysDrv [E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -PdLocate {[-start] | -stop} -physdrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PdMarkMissing -physdrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PdGetMissing -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PdReplaceMissing -physdrv[E0:S0] -arrayA, -rowB -aN 
MegaCli -PdPrpRmv [-UnDo] -physdrv[E0:S0] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -EncInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -EncStatus -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PhyInfo -phyM -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -PhySetLinkSpeed -phyM -speed -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -PdFwDownload [offline][ForceActivate] {[-SataBridge] -PhysDrv[0:1] }|{-EncdevId[devId1]} -f <filename> -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDInfo -Lx|-L0,1,2|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDSetProp  {-Name LdNamestring} | -RW|RO|Blocked|RemoveBlocked | WT|WB|ForcedWB [-Immediate] |RA|NORA | DsblPI 
        | Cached|Direct | -EnDskCache|DisDskCache | CachedBadBBU|NoCachedBadBBU
        -Lx|-L0,1,2|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDSetPowerPolicy -Default| -Automatic| -None| -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching 
        -Lx|-L0,1,2|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDGetProp  -Cache | -Access | -Name | -DskCache | -PSPolicy | Consistency -Lx|-L0,1,2|-LALL  
        -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDInit {-Start [-full]}|-Abort|-ShowProg|-ProgDsply -Lx|-L0,1,2|-LALL -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDCC {-Start [-force]}|-Abort|-Suspend|-Resume|-ShowProg|-ProgDsply -Lx|-L0,1,2|-LALL -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDBI -Enbl|-Dsbl|-getSetting|-Abort|-Suspend|-Resume|-ShowProg|-ProgDsply -Lx|-L0,1,2|-LALL -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -LDRecon {-Start -rX [{-Add | -Rmv} -Physdrv[E0:S0,...]]}|-ShowProg|-ProgDsply 
        -Lx -aN 
MegaCli -LdPdInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDGetNum -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDBBMClr -Lx|-L0,1,2,...|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -getLdExpansionInfo -Lx|-L0,1,2|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LdExpansion -pN -dontExpandArray -Lx|-L0,1,2|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -GetBbtEntries -Lx|-L0,1,2|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -Cachecade -assign|-remove -Lx|-L0,1,2|-LALL -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -CfgLdAdd -rX[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] [WT|WB] [NORA|RA] [Direct|Cached]
        [CachedBadBBU|NoCachedBadBBU] [-szXXX [-szYYY ...]]
        [-strpszM] [-Hsp[E0:S0,...]] [-AfterLdX] | [FDE|CtrlBased]  
		[-Default| -Automatic| -None| -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching] [-Cache] [-enblPI] [-Force]-aN 
MegaCli -CfgCacheCadeAdd [-rX] -Physdrv[E0:S0,...] {-Name LdNamestring} [WT|WB|ForcedWB] [-assign -LX|L0,2,5..|LALL] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgEachDskRaid0 [WT|WB] [NORA|RA] [Direct|Cached] [-enblPI] 
        [CachedBadBBU|NoCachedBadBBU] [-strpszM]|[FDE|CtrlBased] [-Default| -Automatic| -None| -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching] [-Cache] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -CfgClr [-Force] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgDsply -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgCacheCadeDsply -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgLdDel -LX|-L0,2,5...|-LALL [-Force] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgCacheCadeDel -LX|-L0,2,5...|-LALL -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgFreeSpaceinfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgSpanAdd -r10 -Array0[E0:S0,E1:S1] -Array1[E0:S0,E1:S1] [-ArrayX[E0:S0,E1:S1] ...] 
        [WT|WB] [NORA|RA] [Direct|Cached] [CachedBadBBU|NoCachedBadBBU]
        [-szXXX[-szYYY ...]][-strpszM][-AfterLdX]| [FDE|CtrlBased] 
		[-Default| -Automatic| -None| -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching] [-Cache] [-enblPI] [-Force] -aN 
MegaCli -CfgSpanAdd -r50 -Array0[E0:S0,E1:S1,E2:S2,...] -Array1[E0:S0,E1:S1,E2:S2,...] 
        [-ArrayX[E0:S0,E1:S1,E2:S2,...] ...] [WT|WB] [NORA|RA] [Direct|Cached] 
        [CachedBadBBU|NoCachedBadBBU][-szXXX[-szYYY ...]][-strpszM][-AfterLdX] 
        [FDE|CtrlBased] [-Default| -Automatic| -None| -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching] [-Cache] [-enblPI] [-Force] -aN
MegaCli -CfgSpanAdd -r60 -Array0[E0:S0,E1:S1,E2:S2,E3,S3...] -Array1[E0:S0,E1:S1,E2:S2,E3,S3...] 
        [-ArrayX[E0:S0,E1:S1,E2:S2,E3,S3...] ...] [WT|WB] [NORA|RA] [Direct|Cached] 
        [CachedBadBBU|NoCachedBadBBU][-szXXX[-szYYY ...]][-strpszM][-AfterLdX]| 
        [FDE|CtrlBased] [-Default| -Automatic| -None| -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching] [-Cache] [-enblPI] [-Force] -aN
MegaCli -CfgAllFreeDrv -rX [-SATAOnly] [-SpanCount XXX] [WT|WB] [NORA|RA] 
        [Direct|Cached] [CachedBadBBU|NoCachedBadBBU] [-strpszM]
        [-HspCount XX [-HspType -Dedicated|-EnclAffinity|-nonRevertible]]| 
        [FDE|CtrlBased] [-Default| -Automatic| -None| -Maximum| -MaximumWithoutCaching] [-Cache] [-enblPI] -aN 
MegaCli -CfgSave -f filename -aN   
MegaCli -CfgRestore -f filename -aN   
MegaCli -CfgForeign -Scan | [-SecurityKey sssssssssss] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL    
MegaCli -CfgForeign -Dsply [x] | [-SecurityKey sssssssssss] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL    
MegaCli -CfgForeign -Preview [x] | [-SecurityKey sssssssssss] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL    
MegaCli -CfgForeign -Import [x] | [-SecurityKey sssssssssss] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL    
MegaCli -CfgForeign -Clear [x]|[-SecurityKey sssssssssss] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL    
        x - index of foreign configurations. Optional. All by default. 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -GetEventLogInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -GetEvents {-info -warning -critical -fatal} {-f <fileName>} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -GetSinceShutdown {-info -warning -critical -fatal} {-f <fileName>} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -GetSinceReboot {-info -warning -critical -fatal} {-f <fileName>} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -IncludeDeleted {-info -warning -critical -fatal} {-f <fileName>} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -GetLatest n {-info -warning -critical -fatal} {-f <fileName>} -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -GetCCIncon -f <fileName> -LX|-L0,2,5...|-LALL -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpEventLog -Clear -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -GetBbuStatus -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -GetBbuCapacityInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -GetBbuDesignInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -GetBbuProperties -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -BbuLearn -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -BbuMfgSleep -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -BbuMfgSeal -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -getBbumodes  -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -SetBbuProperties -f <fileName> -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -GetGGEEPData offset [Hexaddress] NumBytes n -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpBbuCmd -ScheduleLearn -Dsbl|-Info|[-STARTTIME DDD hh] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -AdpFacDefSet -aN 
MegaCli -AdpFwFlash -f filename [-ResetNow] [-NoSigChk] [-NoVerChk] [-FWTYPE n] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpGetConnectorMode -ConnectorN|-Connector0,1|-ConnectorAll -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -AdpSetConnectorMode -Internal|-External|-Auto -ConnectorN|-Connector0,1|-ConnectorAll -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -PhyErrorCounters -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -DirectPdMapping -Enbl|-Dsbl|-Dsply -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -PDCpyBk -Start -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDCpyBk -Stop|-Suspend|-Resume|-ShowProg|-ProgDsply -PhysDrv[E0:S0] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -PDInstantSecureErase -PhysDrv[E0:S0,E1:S1,...] | [-Force] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -CfgSpanAdd -rX -array0[E0:S1,E1:S1.....] array1[E0:S1,E1:S1.....] -szxxx -enblPI -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDMakeSecure -Lx|-L0,1,2,...|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -DestroySecurityKey | [-Force] -aN 
MegaCli -CreateSecurityKey -SecurityKey sssssssssss | [-Passphrase sssssssssss] |[-KeyID kkkkkkkkkkk] -aN 
MegaCli -CreateSecurityKey useEKMS -aN 
MegaCli -ChangeSecurityKey -OldSecurityKey sssssssssss | -SecurityKey sssssssssss| 
          [-Passphrase sssssssssss] | [-KeyID kkkkkkkkkkk] -aN
MegaCli -ChangeSecurityKey -SecurityKey sssssssssss| 
          [-Passphrase sssssssssss] | [-KeyID kkkkkkkkkkk] -aN
MegaCli -ChangeSecurityKey useEKMS -OldSecurityKey sssssssssss -aN
MegaCli -ChangeSecurityKey -useEKMS -aN
MegaCli -GetKeyID [-PhysDrv[E0:S0]] -aN 
MegaCli -SetKeyID -KeyID kkkkkkkkkkk -aN 
MegaCli -VerifySecurityKey -SecurityKey sssssssssss -aN 
MegaCli -GetPreservedCacheList -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -DiscardPreservedCache -Lx|-L0,1,2|-Lall -force -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 

       sssssssssss  - It must be between eight and thirty-two 
                      characters and contain at least one number, 
                      one lowercase letter, one uppercase 
                      letter and one non-alphanumeric character.
       kkkkkkkkkkk -  Must be less than 256 characters. 
MegaCli -ShowSummary [-f filename] -aN
MegaCli -ELF -GetSafeId -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -ELF -ControllerFeatures -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -ELF -Applykey key <val> [Preview] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -ELF -TransferToVault -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -ELF -DeactivateTrialKey -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -ELF -ReHostInfo -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -ELF -ReHostComplete -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -LDViewMirror -Lx|-L0,1,2,...|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -LDJoinMirror -DataSrc <val> [-force] -Lx|-L0,1,2,...|-Lall -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL 
MegaCli -SecureErase 
	Start[
		Simple|
		[Normal   [ |ErasePattern ErasePatternA|ErasePattern ErasePatternA ErasePattern ErasePatternB]]|
		[Thorough [ |ErasePattern ErasePatternA|ErasePattern ErasePatternA ErasePattern ErasePatternB]]]
	| Stop
	| ShowProg
	| ProgDsply 
	[-PhysDrv [E0:S0,E1:S1,...] | -Lx|-L0,1,2|-LALL] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -Version -Cli|-Ctrl|-Driver|-Pd   -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL
MegaCli -Perfmon {-start -interval <val>} | {stop} | {-getresults -f <Filename>} -aN 
MegaCli -DpmStat -Dsply {lct | hist | ra | ext } [-physdrv[E0:S0]] -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  
MegaCli -DpmStat -Clear {lct | hist | ra | ext } -aN|-a0,1,2|-aALL  

    Note: The directly connected drives can be specified as [:S] 

    Wildcard '?' can be used to specify the enclosure ID for the drive in the 
      only enclosure without direct connected device or the direct connected 
      drives with no enclosure in the system.

    Note:[-aALL] option assumes that the parameters specified are valid 
       for all the Adapters. 

    Note:ProgDsply option is not supported in VMWARE-COSLESS.

    The following options may be given at the end of any command above: 

    [-Silent] [-AppLogFile filename] [-NoLog] [-page[N]] 
                 [-] is optional. 
                  N - Number of lines per page. 
MegaCli XD -AddVd <devList>
MegaCli XD -RemVd <devList>
MegaCli XD -AddCdev <devList> | -force
MegaCli XD -RemCdev <devList>
MegaCli XD -VdList | -Configured | -Unconfigured
MegaCli XD -CdevList | -Configured | -Unconfigured
MegaCli XD -ConfigInfo
MegaCli XD -PerfStats
MegaCli XD -OnlineVd
MegaCli XD -WarpDriveInfo -iN | -iALL
MegaCli XD -FetchSafeId -iN | -iALL
MegaCli XD -ApplyActivationKey <key> -iN

Exit Code: 0x00

[PartialVolume]

Just downloaded the storecli64 binary from https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/STORCLI_SAS3.5_P22.zip extracted the binary from the rpm package and ran it on ShredOS, no libncurses error so either it uses libncurses.so.6 or libncurses is no longer a dependency.

Here's the short form help from the ./storcli64 running on ShredOS

      StorCli SAS Customization Utility Ver 007.2103.0000.0000 Dec 08, 2021

    (c)Copyright 2021, Broadcom Inc. All Rights Reserved.


help - lists all the commands with their usage. E.g. storcli help
<command> help - gives details about a particular command. E.g. storcli add help

List of commands:

Commands   Description
-------------------------------------------------------------------
add        Adds/creates a new element to controller like VD,Spare..etc
delete     Deletes an element like VD,Spare
show       Displays information about an element
set        Set a particular value to a property 
get        Get a particular value to a property 
compare    Compares particular value to a property
start      Start background operation
stop       Stop background operation
pause      Pause background operation
resume     Resume background operation
download   Downloads file to given device
expand     expands size of given drive
insert     inserts new drive for missing
transform  downgrades the controller
reset      resets the controller phy
split      splits the logical drive mirror
/cx        Controller specific commands
/ex        Enclosure specific commands
/sx        Slot/PD specific commands
/vx        Virtual drive specific commands
/dx        Disk group specific commands
/fall      Foreign configuration specific commands
/px        Phy specific commands
/lnx       Lane specific commands
/[bbu|cv]  Battery Backup Unit, Cachevault commands
Other aliases : cachecade, freespace, sysinfo

Use a combination of commands to filter the output of help further.
E.g. 'storcli cx show help' displays all the show operations on cx.
Use verbose for detailed description E.g. 'storcli add  verbose help'
Use 'page[=x]' as the last option in all the commands to set the page break.
X=lines per page. E.g. 'storcli help page=10'
Use J as the last option to print the command output in JSON format
Command options must be entered in the same order as displayed in the help of 
the respective commands.
Use 'nolog' option to disable debug logging. E.g. 'storcli show nolog'

[git70]

Hi!

I just discovered ShredOS and am very positive about the future!

I have been using BCWipe TotalWipeOut for several years, but recently I got really pissed off when they changed the license without informing users during the purchase.

Previously, there was an annual license for $36 and that was fine, but now there is a limit to 10 erases = $3.6 for one erased disk LOL :)
However, I am most angry about the fact that the information about it is hidden deep in small font after the purchase...

Hopefully more of their customers will move from Jetico to ShredOS.
Personally, I prefer to make a $36 annual donation to ShredOS ;)

Bottom line: Now is the best time for ShredOS to become the best data destruction software in the universe!

Only a few features are missing from ShredOS / nwipe:

• ATA Secure Erase for HDD and SSD
• TRIM
• HPA + DCO detection and removal

Hope this & this thread will be added soon!

[PartialVolume]

I'm glad ShredOS is having a positive effect.

I just took a quick look at BCWipe, from what I can workout they seem to maintain some server with a list of what drives you wipe? I don't know whether they also store serial numbers of the drives? I'm not sure I'd like that at all. Would feel too much like big brother is watching you.

ATA secure erase is number 1 in the list of features being added into nwipe/ShredOS, followed closely by HPA+DCO. Hopefully in the next month or so.

In the meantime and as a workaround, you know you can run HPA and DCO detection and correction + secure wipe from the command line in ShredOS using the hdparm command. I haven't put any info about this in the ShredOS README.md but could always add some quick instructions. You would run these commands from the ShredOS 2nd virtual terminal, you can get to that with ALT-F2. ALT-F1 takes you back to the main wipe program (nwipe).

[git70]

I just took a quick look at BCWipe, from what I can workout they seem to maintain some server with a list of what drives you wipe? I don't know whether they also store serial numbers of the drives? I'm not sure I'd like that at all. Would feel too much like big brother is watching you.

From the very beginning, BCWipe did not meet my beliefs (I love FOSS and I prefer to transfer donation = Fair Play), but he was the only program that served Secure Erase and HPA and DCO out of the box.
I do not know the version for Windows because I only used a USB boot version. But this one is annoying, because you must first install the program in Windows, and later he generates a bootable USB (I do not use Windows for some time and it was labor-intensive).
Fortunately, offline works and does not call home.
But somewhere on a USB pendrive, he saves the counter. I did not analyze this and decided to give up this shit.

ATA secure erase is number 1 in the list of features being added into nwipe/ShredOS, followed closely by HPA+DCO. Hopefully in the next month or so.

This is a fantastic message!

In the meantime and as a workaround, you know you can run HPA and DCO detection and correction + secure wipe from the command line in ShredOS using the hdparm command

In the meantime, I have already read about these bypasses in ShredOS, but great and aesthetically will be officially seen in GUI :)

[Ilovemyhous]

Hello!
Another that might be neat, is kinda like Clonezilla, where you can choose an action at the end of the operations; reboot, cmd, shutdown, etc...
The part I suggest is to offer the user the ability to (un)check, if the computer should be turned off after the wipe is done, which is useful for overnight wipes.

[PartialVolume]

Do you mean an option within nwipe to indicate whether you want to shutdown at the end of the wipe? You can already specify shutdown by editing the kernel command line with a nwipe option however I think you mean something that's a bit more interactive within the nwipe menus and prior to starting the wipe?

[Binary-Bear]

Hello PartialVolume

I am really happy to have found your project a far better option to DBAN.

Please would you consider my requests?

Default Settings:
It is generally understood that a single zero pass is sufficient to securely erase a modern hard drive or USB flash drive. With this in mind my request is that the default options be as follows.

Fill With Zeros
Verify Last Pass
Rounds 1 (No final blanking pass)

With the above set as default inexperienced or first time users will avoid long and unnecessary erasure times and those with multiple large drives can erase in a reasonable time without user configuration.

I understand users can modify the defaults themselves but I am considering new users or those not confident with making such configurations.

Thank you

[PartialVolume]

I would tend to agree with this change of default wipe method to fill with zeros. I'm just wondering if there is anybody out there that doesn't feel the same way?

[Firminator]

I agree this should be changed to Zerofill, but I also recall that it can easily be changed in the boot.cfg file or some other file that governs the ShredOS boot. There is some documentation over at the README how to do this.

[Binary-Bear]

Logic Check:
Would it be possible to check if the user has selected "Fill With Zeros" and if so automatically skip the "final blanking pass" as there seems little point writing zero twice.

[Firminator]

I recall reading somewhere that the Final blanking pass is omitted when zerofilling. But I agree it could be made more obvious in the TUI/GUI.

[Binary-Bear]

Auto Refresh:
Booting so quickly before USB drives initialise is impressive but if the user intends to wipe their USB drives the discovery process takes longer as they have to Ctrl-C to refresh. Could an auto refresh be included to allow USB drives time to initialise and therefore been seen by ShredOS without user interaction?

[PartialVolume]

[update] ShredOS now waits for a maximum of 30 seconds or for five seconds of no USB activity, for all USB devices to be initialised before proceeding with the boot, so that USB discs are available as soon as nwipe starts.

[Binary-Bear]

USB3:
When wiping an attached USB flash drive I noticed that it seemed slow. Does ShredOS work with USB3 and if not could that be a possibility?

[PartialVolume]

ShredOS does work with USB3. You need to look at the manufacturers sustained write speed which you might only find by testing a bunch of their flash drives and comparing to other makes. Write speeds can vary widely from just a few MB/s after a few seconds to 100+MB/s depending on make/model. Also if the drive is getting hot it may be throttling its speed to prevent overheating and damage. I would imagine most cheap flash drives have pretty awful sustained write speeds but I've never tested any. This is where you need somebody to go and buy a whole load of different flash drives from the cheapest to most expensive and create a comparison spreadsheet showing what their sustained write speed is according to shredos/nwipe. The sustained write speed is probably nothing like the claimed speed by the manufacturer which is probably a max burst speed under ideal environmental conditions.

[Firminator]

There used to be a site (NIRSOFT's page?) where you can upload USB and HDD/SSD performance results. Right now https://usb.userbenchmark.com/ seems to be a good choice for comparison.

[PartialVolume]

@Firminator Interesting site. I ordered the Peak data by Sequential peak write MB/s in reverse order to see just how slow the worst drive is .. 0.72 MB/s. That's pretty slow. So 0.72MB/s for the SB [X-Fi Go! 1GB to 268MB/s for the Kingston HyperX Savage USB 3.1 128GB And just about every possible speed in between for all the other makes/models.

[Binary-Bear]

Aesthetics:
Personal preference but the dark screen looks much better as default than the blue. :)

[Binary-Bear]

Allow user to select if a drive is to be formatted following a successful overwrite and allow the user to select the formatting type. NTFS, FAT32 etc.

[Firminator]

Feature Creep IMO.

[PartialVolume]

For me there are three important features to add to nwipe before I personally would work on something like this (despite it being relatively easy to implement). HDA/DSO detection and reset with the ability to reset or not being selectable in the GUI and on the command line, ATA secure erase for SSDs and single page pdf certificates. Those three are now at the very top of my list.

If somebody desperately needed a disc formatting feature added to shredos they could write a script and add it into the nwipe launcher script. If they then checked the return status of nwipe and then run a script that asks a few questions and then calls the appropriate commands to format the disc that would be one way of adding it.

Of course you can already format discs from the command line in shredos.

If somebody did write some formatting script to be run after nwipe exits I'd probably add it in but make it optional by putting an entry in grub.cfg to enable formatting.

Based on no evidence what so ever, I have my doubts about how useful this would be. I'm happy to be proved wrong but I don't think anybody on ShredOS or over at nwipe have ever asked for this. For the Linux and windows installs on a wiped drive formatting the disc is build into the live installer so in that particular scenario formatting in shredos seems unnecessary. I guess it would be useful if you were just formatting the disc for use as a data disc rather than installing an O.S. on it.

[Binary-Bear]

Once a drive has been successfully overwritten and formatted "power off" that drive. This would save power and also allow the user to un-plug for hot swapping.

[Firminator]

Feature Creep IMO, but not against it as long as it's optional selectable in the TUI/GUI.

[PartialVolume]

I'd accept that as a pull request if somebody wrote that feature for nwipe but for me personally writing it would be between 5 and 8 on the list of things to do.

[tviikari]

Request to add "rlpr" command to shredos and possible commandline option to print labels.

After drive is overwriten i'm printting sticker that contais model,serial,date, power on hours,power cycles and reallocated sector count.
This would be done automaticly with simple script and rlpr command.
This is tested with Dymo LW450 that is shared from windows with LPD protocol. Queue name is "sticker" ja server ip is 192.168.1.21
Script uses smartmontools to get data from disk and creates txt-file report.txt
Report.txt is then printed "rlpr [email protected] report.txt"
Simples is to add this to kernel commandline opton, something like "[email protected]"

[PartialVolume]

Pull requests are always welcome for review.

[Msoddy]

Hey! Not sure if you're still taking requests, but I would love to have nvme-cli included in this, so that I can securely erase ATA and nvme drives from the same tool.

https://github.com/linux-nvme/nvme-cli

Trying to figure out how to just include that while compiling, but I figure that having it included by default would be pretty useful for other people, too! :)

[PartialVolume]

I thought I'd already added that for some reason. No problem, I'll add it into the next pre-release I do in a week or two.

[PartialVolume]

@Msoddy I just checked the latest pre-release and the nvme-cli package in installed in ShredOS. I think I added a while back so should be in some previous release as well.

Type nvme to run it (not nvme-cli)

[git70]

Please add MC to the img/iso ShredOS

A small and lightweight file and directory manager = greatly facilitates navigating the file system (launched in the second Alt-F2 console):
https://midnight-commander.org
https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/mc

[Firminator]

While this would be a wonderful addition for a system recovery system (like PartedMagic or System-Rescue.org) it's a bit out of the feature scope of ShredOS which is dedicated to wiping attached storage. In other words adding MC or any other ncurses file system manager would be the start of feature creep as it doesn't add to the purpose of wiping storage. Plus it adds worries and work to keep 3rd-party packages updated.

[git70]

My goal was to facilitate moving on logs, PDF certificates and Grub settings.
That is why I consider this small package to be useful for ShredOS users, not only for larger multifunctional recovery systems.

[PartialVolume]

I don't mind adding MC as long as it has a small binary and doesn't have a load of dependencies that need to be included. I.e it doesn't add very much to the size of the .img

However, like @Firminator says it would add additional work because surprisingly it doesn't appear to be included as standard in buildroot or busybox, so I would need to add it as a package and keep it up to date instead of relying on buildroot to do that.

It sort of feels like it might be one of those programs that only a select few might use.

Let me have a think about it.., I did use it many many years ago, but after that brief encounter I always just end up using the CLI. I may load it on my laptop and have a play with it again and see if it might be useful.

[git70]

it doesn't appear to be included as standard in buildroot or busybox

I don't know how to check it, but maybe there is a MC replacement there?
I just mean a simple two-panel file manager and navigating the directories with up-down arrows (like the oldschool Total Commander / Midnight Commander just)

Let me have a think about it.., I did use it many many years ago, but after that brief encounter I always just end up using the CLI. I may load it on my laptop and have a play with it again and see if it might be useful.

I also got used to cd, ls, cp, etc... but the MC style program can improve the user's impression and be more pleasant for beginner Linux users

[andrewcrook]

Stop and Continue Feature

I wonder if it would be helpful to have an option to stop and continue the process. The best way to make it president would be to have the configuration, round number and last know position written to a flash drive etc so you can continue where it left off at a later date. I have had to restart some really long jobs on large drives so would see this as a great help. Anyone else?