Quote Originally Posted by irlandes View Post
It has been a while for me, but hexedit will allow you to read and write to a HD, as well as on a file on HD. I think it's something like:

hexedit /dev/sdaN

for which ever hard disk you want to look at. By memory, it does show you the contents in hexadecimal.

See: man hexedit
On a console or terminal prompt.

Do be very careful about changing things on a HD or partition.


But, it's fun to look in there. Makes one feel very powerful.

Years ago, someone sold a utility for Windows that did the same thing. I am having a temporary mind blank on the name. Edit: I just Googled. it was part of Norton's utilities, and it was called diskedit. I used it a lot.

Either the Windows (pay program) or hexedit (free in Linux) will let you search. Write a file with really strange text pattern, save it and search for that strange pattern on HD. You can learn how and where files write and rewrite on a HD, if you save it more than once.
Yeah I have that. Only problem is, is trying to get all that hex stuff in English so I can read it... lol