Drive Utility

Overview

Drive Utility is a GTK3-based graphical utility for comprehensive management of disk devices on Linux systems. The intuitive interface allows you to:

• Write images to USB drives, SD cards, and other devices from .iso, .img, or other supported files, making bootable media or restoring backups.
• Create images from physical devices ("read" mode), including on-the-fly compression (gzip, bzip2, xz, lz4, zstd) and assignment of file ownership to the current user for easy access.
• Format disks with popular filesystems (FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, EXT4), with the ability to set a custom volume label and specify user/group ownership for ext4.
• Securely wipe disks using zeros or random data, with support for multiple passes and an optional final zero-fill for maximum data destruction.

Key features:

• Automatic detection and display of all connected storage devices, with clear size and model information.
• No need to manually unmount devices: all operations handle this automatically.
• Progress bars and detailed status for all operations.
• Built-in safety: integrates with PolicyKit and pkexec to request privileges only when needed, minimizing risk.
• All actions are localized and support multiple languages.

Drive Utility is built with Python 3 and leverages UDisks2 for robust device management. It is suitable for both beginners and advanced users who need a reliable, safe, and user-friendly tool for disk operations.

Features

• Image Writing: Easily write .iso, .img, .bin and other supported files to USB drives, SD cards, or other removable media, making bootable media or restoring backups.
• Image Creation: Create a disk image from any connected device ("read" mode), with options for on-the-fly compression (gzip, bzip2, xz, lz4, zstd) and setting the resulting file's ownership to the current user for easy access.
• Disk Formatting: Format entire disk devices with popular filesystems such as FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, and EXT4. For EXT4, you can specify the user and group ownership of the root directory. Users can also set a custom volume label for the new partition.
• Secure Disk Wiping: Erase sensitive data from disks using various wiping methods, including:
  • Zero fill (overwriting with zeros)
  • Random data (overwriting with random patterns)
  • Multiple passes (for enhanced data security)
  • Option for a final zero-fill pass after random wipe

Command-line utilities

Drive Utility also provides a set of powerful command-line tools for scripting and advanced usage:

driveutility-write

Write a disk image or device to a target device (raw copy).

Example:

sudo driveutility-write -s /path/to/image.iso -t /dev/sdX

driveutility-read

Create an image from a device, with optional compression.

Example:

sudo driveutility-read -s /dev/sdX -t /path/to/backup.img -c gzip

driveutility-format

Format a device with a specified filesystem and set ownership.

Example:

sudo driveutility-format -d /dev/sdX -f ext4 -u 1000 -g 1000 "MYDISK"

driveutility-wipe

Securely wipe a device with zeros or random data, with multiple passes.

Example:

sudo driveutility-wipe -d /dev/sdX -p 3 -t random -z

See the man pages (man driveutility-write, etc.) for full details and options.