Hello everyone,

I am trying to completely erase my hard drive contents and reinstall windows xp. I want to get rid of all my personal information and have a fresh hard drive before I reinstall. I have tried KillDisk (which says "Bad Sectors. Try using PM software".) and I have tried DBAN (which says over 161 hours to complete on 'quick'). This is an 80GB hard drive on a laptop. Can anyone recommend any bootable-only free disk erasing software? I am fresh out of ideas.

Thanks in advance.

DBAN should work (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban).

Based on your other comments, your disk may have a problem. I would see if the maker of your disk has a diagnostic tool (many do). You can typically can also use that tool to wipe the disk, but more importantly you can check to see if the disk has a problem.

You need to set your Boot Priority to be your CD/DVD Drive first. Then put in your XP disk and restart. It will say "Boot From CD, press any key..." hit a key.

it will go to a blue screen and ask if you want to install windows XP. Hit the key for INSTALL.

At some point, it will show you your hard drive partitions. When you get there, you can DELETE PARTITION.

DELETE THE WINDOWS PARTITION.

Then, you will need to FORMAT PARTITION.

Once you format it, it will guide you through the installation process.

Found the tool, checked the disk, extensively. No problems. As for the erase tool, it only works if I can boot into DOS which apparently I can't with an XP laptop with no floppy.

Deleting a partition won't delete the files any more than reformatting does. I want to get rid of the files I deleted before I install.

Any other alternatives to KillDisk or DBAN? If not, than I guess I will sit down with some popcorn and watch it run for a week straight.

TRY THIS FREEWARE

HDD Wipe Tool description

WARNING: After running this free wipe tool, the whole disk surface will be fully erased.
Therefore, data restoration will be impossible after using this utility!


HDD Low Level Format Tool

WARNING: After running this free low level format tool, the whole disk surface will be fully erased.
Therefore, data restoration will be impossible after using this utility!


Developer:

http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/

or from

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-D...rmat-Tool.shtml

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Secu...Wipe-Tool.shtml

Thanks peter99, but is there a way to boot into either of these since the hard drive that I will be erasing has the OS on it? (catch-22: erase the hard drive where the program resides .... won't work .... will it? )

Not to worry. The executable file will in most cases make a floppy which you then boot from and run the program. You can also run DBAN from a CD by getting the .iso file and burning it as an image. I seriously doubt that DBAN would take 160 hours, more like a couple for a disk of such size, unless something has happened to the transfer rate on the machine.

HDD Wipe Tool description and HDD Low Level Format Tool both (to my knowledge) require you to be running windows to execute the program. There is no bootable floppy/CD option for those.

For DBAN and KillDisk, they are both bootable from floppy or CD, but won't work for the reasons I mentioned. I have a feeling that the reason that KillDisk found bad sectors could relate to the reason DBAN shows ridiculous times. I dunno.

Just some more info

Diagnostic software and utilities from the manufacturer of your hard drive(s).

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287#hitachi

Conner
Fujitsu
Hitachi
IBM
Maxtor
Quantum
Samsung
Seagate
Toshiba
Western Digital

HDDerase Comes with instructions on how to use

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

HDDerase.exe is a DOS-based utility that securely erases "sanitizes" all data
on ATA hard disk drives.

ps
one can always take the drive out and set it to salve in another computer if using a windows based program, just make sure you choose the right drive to erase. For laptop drives you will need a USB to IDE/SATA adaptor.

Use a win98 startup disk.

http://www.computerhope.com/rdebug.htm

ERASE ALL HDD INFORMATION

This debug routine is used to erase all partition information on the hard disk drive.
Quick but not sure how secure it is.

i've got a problem with both of those descriptions as neither is actually possible to do with software..."the whole disk surface will be fully erased"?...really? does it send in a little guy with a squeegee? NO software can make it impossible to restore data (if someone REALLY wants the data) the only way to do that is to destroy the platters (and i mean destroy them....not just break them)

i'm sure those tools work the same way that any of the other ones do by doing a zero fill (which is a low level format)...which doesn't completely remove the data from the drive...just makes it really hard to get at.


dban is my favorite method and it's the easiest to use....

To completely erase all data on the drive(s) using Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN)

Download

Readme.txt

Bootable CD version (ISO)
OR
Bootable Floppy/USB Version (EXE - self extracting setup)

Use

Bootable CD

1. Burn the DBAN ISO file to a CD.
   NOTE: Keep in mind that this is different than burning a file to a CD. If you do not know how to burn an ISO image, then download CDBurnerXP Pro and install it. Then go Here for instructions for burning the ISO image
2. Reboot your PC with the DBAN CD in the CD-ROM drive.
   NOTE:Make sure the PC is set to run from the CD as the primary boot device. You do this by setting your PC to boot to the CD-ROM in BIOS (enter bios by pressing f1, f2 or del key during memory count up, then search for boot order, and set the CD as the first boot device)
3. Once you have successfully booted to the DBAN disk, type
   

   Autonuke

4. Once the process is completed you may run it again as many times as it takes for you to feel comfortable, but my experience shows that twice is plenty (unless you usually walk around your house in a tinfoil hat so that the government's spies cannot intrude into your thoughts and steal all of your secrets)

Bootable Floppy/USB

1. Double click the DBAN EXE file that you just downloaded to execute it
2. Choose the drive that you would like to install DBAN on (A: for a Floppy or whatever letter is assigned to your chosen USB device)
3. Press Install
4. Reboot your PC with the DBAN Floppy in the Floppy drive or your USB device attached to an open USB port.
   NOTE:Make sure the PC is set to run from the Floppy or USB device as the primary boot device. You do this by setting your PC to boot to the Floppy or USB device in BIOS (enter bios by pressing f1, f2 or del key during memory count up, then search for boot order, and set the Floppy or USB device as the first boot device)
5. Once you have successfully booted to the DBAN disk, type
   

   Autonuke

6. Once the process is completed you may run it again as many times as it takes for you to feel comfortable, but my experience shows that twice is plenty (unless you usually walk around your house in a tinfoil hat so that the government's spies cannot intrude into your thoughts and steal all of your secrets)

IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE TO LABEL YOUR DBAN DISK CLEARLY AS ACCIDENTAL USE WILL BE CATASTROPHIC!

.

For most users, a simple write is enough to make the data unreadable. You would need to access the disk in a way that is not normally done, but some recovery is possible, although unlikely.

There is even some question with 7 passes and some say that data can be restored, but since it would be hard and most likely expensive, unless the government really wants to get the data, it is most likely good enough.

Well, as I said in my previous post, DBAN didn't work for me. I used the "quick", "nofloppy", and "Autonuke" commands (separately) and they all gave me 100+ hours remaining and eventually climbed up to 160 - 170 range and giving me very weird readings like "wiping 852,745,376 B/s...." (852GB per second ... WOW! )... oh and also it would only refresh every two minutes or so.... Like the elapsed time would say 00:00:02 and then two minutes later it would jump from 00:00:02 to 00:02:07, and then from that to 00:05:36, etc, etc.... I let it run for about 30 minutes before I called it quits. So, anyways, DBAN wasn't working.

But, I did use HDD Wipe Tool, which peter99 mentioned, and that was good enough for me. I didn't think it would work since I was wiping the hard drive that the OS was on, but it did work. Can anyone explain that?

Thanks for all your help everyone. Viva Geeks To Go!