Wiping a hard drive with DBAN

Darik's Boot and Nuke - DBAN Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk 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.

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer on April 25, 2012

1 of 6 Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNet

Darik's Boot and Nuke - DBAN

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk 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.

Download DBAN - http://www.dban.org

2 of 6 Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNet

Kicking off the process. This part of the launch process can take a few minites ... don't panic!

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This (virtual) system only has a single drive so there's no chance of wiping a drive that you need! If you have multiple drives then you're going to need to think before you wipe!

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There are six different options for wiping, with "Quick Erase" being the quickest, and "PRNG Stream" taking the longest. I recommend "DoD Short" or "DoD 5220.22-M" for drive wiping.

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The wipe process kicks off, with this wipe estimated to take 2 hours.

6 of 6 Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNet

And it's done ... having taken a little over an hour. Job done, the drive is wiped.

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