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Previous RAID config was RAID6 in a QNAP NAS, I now want to repurpose the disks as 8 individual disk in different machines.

Each disk appears to have some RAID metadata (superblock) that is stopping me format them to the full capacity (3TB).

I've tried :

sudo mdadm -v --zero-superblock /dev/sdb

mdadm: Unrecognised md component device - /dev/sdb


sudo mdadm -E /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
   MBR Magic : aa55
Partition[0] :   1565565868 sectors at            1 (type ee)

So not really sure what to do now. I basically want clear everything off each disk.

Also not sure it's relevant but I only have access to each disk via a USB 2.0 caddy.

Also tried Diskpart and no luck

diskpart

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  • "I basically want clear everything off each disk." – Do you mean everything? (so each disk is totally clean). Or (per title) metadata? (so the disk looks clean but data recovery tools are able to find something).
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Feb 5, 2023 at 9:24
  • You have a mix of Linux-like device names and then "Microsoft" appearing next... which OS is it where you intend to clear the disks?
    – Hannu
    Feb 5, 2023 at 9:30
  • @Hannu The disk were pulled from QNAP. I have them in a USB caddy. I can access this caddy from my Windows 11 OS. I also have VMWARE installed with a Ubtuntu VM which i can also access the caddy. This is the reason you see both Windows and Linux.
    – molko
    Feb 5, 2023 at 9:38
  • @KamilMaciorowski I basically want to format then to 3TB and then use them again sometime or donate to my friends. Just want them useable
    – molko
    Feb 5, 2023 at 9:40
  • In Linux: wipefs -a.
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Feb 5, 2023 at 9:50

1 Answer 1

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Important: make sure you are 100% sure about the device name for the disk; you do NOT want to do this on a "live" disk (i.e. one you wish to go on using).

$ lsblk

Will tell which disks you have available currently; i suggest to run it BEFORE you connect the "USB-caddy", and then just after connecting, probing the difference between those two runs.

To actually clear the disk partitioning info, normally you may erase content info (metadata) with:

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1 /dev/sdb

IF the actual USB-caddy does appear as /dev/sbd - in the second lsblk run (above).
NOTE: This is for standard GPT or MBR formatted disks, I cannot tell for other partitioning formats.

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  • At the same time I had just executed sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M which is pretty much the same as your suggestion. I'll let you now how i get on
    – molko
    Feb 5, 2023 at 9:59
  • sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 1048576 bytes (1.0 MB, 1.0 MiB) copied, 0.761137 s, 1.4 MB/s and it made no difference, still reports at 746GB
    – molko
    Feb 5, 2023 at 10:18
  • @molko sudo partprobe
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Feb 5, 2023 at 10:23
  • @KamilMaciorowski thans, just tired that and it's the same - Disk /dev/sdb: 746.52 GiB, 801569724928 bytes, 1565565869 sectors Disk model: EFRX-68EUZN0 you can see the Disk Model refers to a WesterDigital 3TB device
    – molko
    Feb 5, 2023 at 10:25
  • Another try: Get / Create e.g. "Ubuntu Linux" Install media and boot it in "Try Ubuntu"-mode, then check if e.g. "gparted" can null out the partitioning info, or even try the "dd" thing from there too (Thinking: Remove "Windows" from having control over writes).
    – Hannu
    Feb 5, 2023 at 21:05

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