Programs Like Boot And Nuke
In this review of DBAN I mention that it’s not the most user friendly product, but if you give it a couple stabs more often than not you’ll succeed. Keep in mind DBAN is open source and free. Commercial products often come with support where as open source, not so much. Now on to the DBAN review. Darik’s boot and nuke is Free Software one can use to boot and nuke your HDD (hard drive).
Software Disk Erase Solutions But with so many open source and commercial software based solutions to erase your hard drive one might wonder what is the best and why? Lets review my top solutions one can use to nuke your hard drive. – free open source and works for a lot of systems. ( if you can’t burn it to disk yourself) Requires a working computer that can boot to disk or flash drive. has a bare-bones disk wipe package but I, this will give you SSD and HDD wipe plus backup and other PC utilities.
WipeDrive is a long time favorite of mine. Sometime but check their. Software based solutions will need to be ran from a disk or USB flash drive. They usually work with most systems and can be a little more difficult to figure out. However, they are cheaper than hardware based solutions. Software based solutions like DBAN, Paragon and WipeDrive are typically much slower than hardware based solutions. Hardware Based Disk Erase Solutions – Erase SSD and HDD drives quick and easy.
A full tutorial on using Darik's Boot And Nuke. How to Erase a Hard Drive Using DBAN. You must 'burn' the program to a disc (like an empty CD or DVD). Sep 21, 2010 This self-contained boot floppy program securely erases hard drives. More like this. Generic Company Place Holder Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) Related. Popular Alternatives to Darik's Boot and Nuke for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Self-Hosted and more. Explore 35 apps like Darik's Boot and Nuke, all suggested and.
Hardware based disk wiping solutions are much faster and easier the software based solutions. They are so fast that many business / enterprise level users use them before discarding computers. But as a home user they are still affordable enough that at the lower end I could see buying one simply due to the ease of use. USB 3.0 SATA Hard Drive Duplicator & Eraser Dock – Standalone 2.5/3.5in HDD & SSD Eraser and Cloner. Connect your 2.5in and 3.5in SATA HDDs or SSDs through a USB 3.0 connections. Good prices online.
Average cost $70. StarTech Standalone 2.5in/3.5in SATA Hard Drive Duplicator and Eraser – HDD Hard Disk Drive Duplicator and Sanitizer. Erase up to 2 SATA hard drives simultaneously without a host computer. The HDD copier offers high performance duplication, and has been tested for speeds up to 14GB per minute. Compare prices. CRU Inc WiebeTech Drive eRazer Ultra – Hard drive eraser – native SATA and IDE/PATA, and more.
Compare prices on and. The cheaper models usually do not erase SSD drives. If you don’t know which type of hard drive you have I recommend buying one that does both. As technology progresses and as SSD gets cheaper I would imagine that most devices will come standard with SSD. DBAN versus Commercial Software DBAN is a free disk eraser located on source forge which will wipe most hard drives clear of all data. Many commercial software scrubbers claim they are military grade tech and trusted by government agencies and major corporations as their primary disk wipe utility.
No matter what you choose, if you invest money in the software/hardware please ensure it wipes external hard drives, thumb drives, memory cards, SSD, HDD, SDHD, SDXD, iPods, MAC, etc. as the higher end options I’ve listed do. Erase your hard drive with DBAN & other external media. Support for all PC and Mac Computers (Intel, AMD & PowerPC).
If you don’ t mind paying a little cash I feel the commercial options are clearly the way to go. They’re easier to use and can be used to wipe the drive of many of your hardware devices which contain a hard disk. Keep in mind during this review that if you lack a little geek in your blood DBAN could be difficult to get going however, with a little perseverance even the faint of heart can get DBAN to do what they need it to do.
Feel free to ask questions below in the comment section. “Darik’s Boot and Nuke (”DBAN”) is a self-contained boot program that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction on your hdd. The most recent release is beta DBAN 2.2.6.
In order to install DBAN wants you to burn the file to a blank disc and boot the computer with it. Do not unzip this file. DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses, malware, and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis. This means it writes over the existing data making it virtually impossible to recover the data it over wrote.
Both wipe drive and dariks boot and nuke are great options to erase your hard drive. All of these utilities will permanently wipe your hard drive clean with military grade “scrubbing” which simply means the software writes over your hard disk so many times it becomes unreadable with today’s technology. Now one might ask “How do I use dban to erase my hard drive?” well I’m glad you asked! Below I’ll give you two simple to use instructions to autonuke your hard drive clean.
There are two ways to accomplish this, I’ll review both ways in simple form then break down the USB Flash installation in more detail. 1 – load dban to a CD, 2 – install dban on a USB flash drive Simple dban CD install instructions – DBAN 2.x only:. Download the most recent version of DBAN 2.x.
Burn the ISO to CD. Insert the CD into your CD ROM. Reboot your computer. Follow the prompts Installing DBAN on a floppy or USB flash drive DBAN version 1.0.7 allows you to install the dban to flash drive or floppy disk. Hello I have a notebook system with Vista, no floppy.
I downloaded the software on a CD-R. I may have to use a USB flash device. With this Vista where do I locate the prompt? I turned off the system with the power switch then when I power it up it asks if I want to logg in safe mode, or command prompt? I selected command prompt. Then I selected the drive letter E: dir Then typed as instructed: autonuke. The system answered: “Autonuke is not recognized as an internal or external command, opereable program or batch file.” looking for a.exe command?
What do I do? Use a USB flash device for this area?
I am so happy for so many wonderful responses of this utility. I really want to format Vista.
LOL Mike. says.
You must use an account with full hardware access to create the DBAN boot media. This means that you must be a member of the administrators group or have similar privileges on your Microsoft Windows computer. Virus scanners and domain policies can prevent you from creating the DBAN boot media. The USB booting capabilities of many computers are incomplete or broken. Most computers capable of booting from a USB device require that it report a removable media type, and that it be unpartitioned and smaller than two gigabytes (so that the BIOS can boot it like a floppy disk).
If the drive letter of your USB device does not appear in WinImage drive list, then it is an unsupported media type. In particular, most USB+IDE bridge implementations are unrecognized, which means that a 2.5 inch hard disk in an external USB enclosure is incompatible. I tried to use my recovery window 7 cd’s.
When I put #1cd in, it asked if I had another disk that had no label. I inserted it, was asked to either back up or not and I chose not to back up. It then informed me that my hard drive was smaller than when originally installed and I couldn’t use that cd.
I used only the four cd’s labelled 1-4 without the extra one. I now am having problems with my computer updating.
Will using DBAN help me or will it somehow not do anything to the size of the hard drive? I tried getting the free windows 10 upgrade without success, thus the recovery.I’m wondering if not being able to use the unlabelled disc stopped installation of something my computer needed. @Todd – this is why I tell people to use WipeDrive to late for you now =( DBAN works well but if you’re not a geek and things get hairy this is where you can find yourself.
Are you getting any options at all? Can you choose advanced installation during the boot up? If the CD drive isn’t loading period, no windows installation options, I recommend you reformat your hard drive.
How old is the PC? Can you post a screen shot of what you see when you put in the windows DVD – Also can you take a photo of the windows DVD and post it online at a place like. Caren says.
I’ve been in touch by phone with the WipeDrive tech support folks (White Canyon Software). The newest version of WipeDrive (v. Six) will NOT, I repeat NOT, work on the old PowerPC Macs, and neither will version Five. It only works on the newer Intel Macs. There used to be a separate version (back around the time of v.3) for Macs that came with 2 discs, one for PowerPC and one for Intel Macs. But it’s not made anymore, and they don’t have any of the old discs hanging around. Sooooo, I have an old PowerPc G4 that I want to do a Dept.
Of Defense wipe on, and I can’t get it done. The Mac disc utility can be used to wipe the disc up to 35 times, but only if I connect my Mac to another Mac, and wipe the connected drive from there.
I do not have access to another Mac, this option won’t work for me, and you can’t do a secure wipe on the drive you’re using, it won’t let you. So what are my options here? The DBAN stuff is unlikely to work well on my old machine, and I’m not techie enough to get through all the complicated instructions. WipeDrive works great, I’ve used it many times, but I’ve never been stopped cold with a PowerPC Mac before.
The answer seems to be to get ahold of an old WipeDrive disc, but I can’t find a copy (I’m scouring the Internet, Craigslist, eBay, etc., no such luck). Does ANYONE know how I might obtain a copy? I’m out of options. Thanks for the help: ).
Kurt says. Hey, I am currently wiping a drive using DBAN CD boot option, because I acquired some sort of virus/trojan or some sort of malware that has allowed hackers onto my computer and all else seems to have failed. I made an attempt to run Xubuntu 12.04 as a fresh install on the drive without wiping it first, so obviously the hacker was able to locate the file again. Anyways, I backed up my documents and booted DBAN.
It seems to be working fine, however there is one concern. Prior to starting the service, DBAN listed the drives and it had one that was odd: “???? Unknown Device” or something along those lines and to the bottom of that was my HDD “dev/sda” but the space was limited to 117GB out of a total of 120GB. Is it possible for the virus to be inside that “????”? And if so, what, if anything can I do to delete that? Thanks in advance!
Hi Kurt; I have an old Dell PC with Windows Vista that has been sitting unused in my Den for a couple of years. I would like to recycle the computer and wanted to get all my information wiped off the HD before I send it in. I downloaded the latest version of DBAN (2.2.7i586) and burned it to a CD. After changing my boot options the program started with no problem. However, when I run DBAN on Autonuke or Interactive Mode, it runs for only a few seconds and comes back with the message “DBAN finished with non-fatal errors.” Below that message are six messages that say “ERROR /dev/sde (process crash),” Furthermore, when I go to “Interactive Mode,” it has four rows stating “???? Unrecognized Device.” Above my one hard drive listing (even when I check the one hard drive to be deleted, the error persists).
Boot And Nuke Instructions
The only external devices I have hooked up to my computer agree my mouse, keyboard and monitor (I kind of need those to use the computer!) so I have NO idea what these devices are. DBAN will detect hardware such as SD card readers, USB devices etc etc that are connected internally to your mother board and display them as “???? unrecognizable device” which causes the dev/sda (process crash) error. Boot DBAN from a CD or DVD. After it loads instead of using “autonuke,” select interactive mode. After a few seconds you will see: (description of your hard drive here) But if you see this: ????
unrecognizable device (description of your hard drive here) This will give you the following nonfatal error: Error: dev/sda (process crash) There are several solutions. 1.)You can use the settings in your BIOS to disable all excess hardware on your mother board such as SD card readers and other things not essential. 2.)If you have a desktop you can crack it open and physically disconnect excess hardware. Solution 3 Download partedmagic and then burn the ISO to a disk like you did with DBAN. When you boot from the disk you will see different options. Choose boot into system memory or you can choose nothing as it will time out and default to the correct setting we want.
Parted magic should start up in a windows like environment. On the desktop, double click “Disk Eraser.” When disk eraser starts there will be an option to run DBAN. This will allow you to use DBAN and bypass all those errors or you can use one of the other tools provided.
This is a very quick solution. Solution 4 Use wipedrive. Caren says. When I get to the screen where it shows where do you want to install windows, the disk partition with my primary hard drive has a caution symbol at the bottom and reads that windows cannot be installed to disk partition 2, and when you click to show details on why it can’t it reads the disk may fail soon if there is another location install windows there???
I was able to bring up a command prompt and entered diskpart and activated the partition I’m trying to install windows on, but still get the same message? In section 2.2 above it states that there is a tutorial at the dban website under faq that shows how to use windows to burn the dban ISO to a cd-r, but there is no such tutorial, anymore, or it is in some obscure place due to poor web organization. If it is still there could you please direct me to it.
Also, I have burn the dban iso image to three different cd-r s and none can be read by my bd drive even after setting boot sequence to boot from bd drive first. Any ideas/solutions?
Thanks in advance. If you’re burning a true ISO, it should work. But since it’s not then I suggest you put dban on a USB thumb drive and boot to that! Download the dban-2.xxxxxxxxxx.iso Download and run Universal USB Installer, select dban-2.xxxxxxxxxx.iso from the drop down list and follow the onscreen instructions Once the installation to USB is complete, restart your PC and set your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device, save your changes and reboot Once she comes up follow the menu options. It may happen the same way on the usb if I don’t figure out the problem.
Boot And Nuke Flash Drive
My computer is majorly infected so I am going to the library to burn the iso image to a cd-r which does not give me administrator privileges. Are these needed to burn the iso? I have read that burning the iso too fast, which occurs at the library (it burns in about 20 seconds) may cause a deficient iso image? After downloading at the library computer, the screen shows a rectangle with the dban in it and I then burn that to a cd-r. I have checked the cd-r at the library to look at the files on the cd-r and I can see a list of files, but I can not look at it on my computer at home. The disc drive just ignores the disc in it, even though my computer shows the disc drive.
(I have had nothing but problems with windows 8.) Any further ideas?