dban...How on earth???????

leosayer39

ok, i have downloaded dban as I have just sold on old pc on ebay

I downloaded dban to the lappy that i am using now and then extracted the files to a usb stick and then chucked that stick into the a usb of the pc that i want to wipe (Its a dell dimension)

I can see the ISO file on the usb stick (as well as other files that come with the Dban download)

I believe that i now have to try and boot from the usb stick but i have no idea how to change the boot order of my dell, and subsequently boot from the usb stick which will hopefully banish all data from my hard drive.

I am aware that xp will be deleted as well...so i ll then get a copy of Unbunto and boot from that

Please help...my banking details and everything was on the PC that I have just sold and i would really like to erase my disc

Cheers

bat999

@leosayer39
You need to find out whether your computer is capable of booting from USB.
Mine isn't.

leosayer39

closed wrote: »

are you selling it without xp installed?


Use the factory restore partition, if it has one, then wipe free space with ccleaner instead.

You can't just copy an iso to a usb stick and boot from it, it's a CD/DVD image.

Yes, sold it without XP installed..it was crystal clear in the advert.

So, what do i do next then?

leosayer39

bat999 wrote: »

@leosayer39
You need to find out whether your computer is capable of booting from USB.
Mine isn't.

Agreed...but how?
Its a dell dimension 1100

Taffybiker

You can't boot from an ISO file - it needs to be burned to disk.

Edit: beaten to it.

bat999

leosayer39 wrote: »

Agreed...but how?

Well, I had to find out information about my motherboard from manufacturer's website.

leosayer39

Taffybiker wrote: »

You can't boot from an ISO file - it needs to be burned to disk.

Thanks for that...I meant boot from the usb stick that has the iso file on it

I could burn in iso disc if i have to and try and tell the pc to boot from that instead

bat999

leosayer39 wrote: »

I could burn in iso disc if i have to and try and tell the pc to boot from that instead

That's probably your best bet if you're not sure about USB booting.

Darksun

Do you have a CD burner? If so it's probably best to do that rather than fiddling around with USB boot. Remember though, you have to burn it as a disk image, not just burn the ISO file to the disk

Instructions for burning a disk at http://www.dban.org/faq/burning

If you have to use USB, follow these instructions - http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-dban-to-a-usb-flash-drive-using-windows/

Taffybiker

When you insert the usb stick, does the filename have the extension *.iso? If so then it can't work. Your best bet would be to download something like Imgburn to burn the iso file to a disk. The files on the disk could then be copied to your stick.

HO87

As stated above you cannot boot from a .iso file. You will need to burn it to a CD or DVD making sure that when you burn it that you select the "make disc bootable" option. Put the burned disc in the drive, boot your machine into BIOS and select the boot from CD/DVD drive option then reboot allowing it to run the DBAN disc. With respect CCleaner will not ensure the level of cleansing that DBAN (or Iolo Disc Scrubber 3) will. DBAN is free though whereas DS is not.