Alternative to DBAN

Rev

Anyone recommend an alternative to DBAN that I can use in windows?

I have a few hard drives I'd like to wipe and sell on, I want to put them in an external enclosure and wipe them but I don't want to not have use of my PC for the time it takes DBAN to wipe them.

I've googled but I have no idea what's safe and what works, so thought I'd ask for some recommendations.

Thanks.

fwor

Personally, I prefer to stick to Open Source based utilities, as they are much less likely to have undesirable things coded in.

The problem you have is that most utilities are made to be platform-independent by running from a bootable CD, which is obviously no good in your case.

Have you taken a look at:

http://www.heidi.ie/node/6

The "erase the complete hard drive" option won't be any use to you, as it just uses DBAN, but it looks like there may be other options from within the Windows-based utility, as it says it can erase networked drives.

John_Gray

Rev wrote: »

I don't want to not have use of my PC for the time it takes DBAN to wipe them.

How about setting DBAN off just before you go to bed ?

vyseyboy

Eraser
http://www.heidi.ie/node/6

This program can do the Guttman / DoD overwriting several times with random data secure erasing kind of thing.

Format the drives first then set up a task to securely erase free space, and that should do it.

Although I'd always trust dban slightly more for thoroughness and completeness, personally. But I can't imagine there'd be much difference in the results, if any.

Edit: didn't even realise fwor had already mentioned this, woops/

Paul_Herring

Isn't the whole point of DBAN, and how it achieves it, the reason it takes so long, and anything else that does that is going to take approximately same amount of time?

Rev

Thanks, I'll download eraser and give that a go.