Hi Guys
I have a cool job to do and that's to destroy aix5.1 on two of my servers. I need to get rid of all information. I have thought of a way of doing this and wondered if any of you had any ideas!!
Get the machine into maint mode and run the dd cmd!
I have a bad way, but is fast and easy.
Just open the cover of the internal hard disk, unplug them and plug them back in a different order, O/S gone.
and AIX 5.1 does indeed have /dev/zero so
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdXXX
however eraseing data isn't as much fun as smashing things with a sledgehammer.
I belive that ten gallons of gasoline and a lighter would probably do the trick and very fast as well...
Hmmm !!!!!!!! Some nice ideas here but i liked the sledgehammer one 
Make 4 equal size holes through all the harddrive platters with a cheap drill from Wal-Mart and no security expert would ever be able to recover the data... also much less mess than the sledge hammer.
You�d be amazed / horrified what hard disk recovery specialists can recover...
There is one way to safely destroy the data so that it cannot ever be read again:
Destroy the magnetic media.
Drilling a few holes will only destroy the data that was where the hole now is.
You could take the disk platters out and grind off all of the surface - messy, it would take ages, and how would you ensure you had ground enough of the surface off to completely destroy the media.
Degauss the disk - you can buy specialist machines to do literally this - but how to ensure it has had enough exposure to definitely do the job?
The sledge hammer route - Companies that do secure data destruction that I know of use the sledge hammer method, literally, well OK they don�t employ a bloke with a sledgehammer to smash them, they use a crushing machine.
If the data MUST be destroyed the "sledge hammer way" is the only sure way.
nice 1 gents, I found a little utility within AIX which erases discs and it worked swell, although I was tempted to use the sledge hammer move>>
thx for all the feed back