Wiping a hard drive

quidsinquentin

Hi all

I've got an old Packard Bell desktop to give to a friend that hasn't got a PC.

I want to wipe the hard drives in it - there are three - to remove any old data and the old operating system (windows XP). Then I'm going to reload the OS.

I'm trying to use Dban to wipe the drives but I'm not having much success.

First, I'm having no luck getting the PC to boot from the disc with Dban on it.

Second, I'm having real issues changing the BIOS priorities on the PC to boot from the CD.

Anyone got any advice on this please?

I've looked around the net - ehow/about/etc - first, but the information isn't detailed enough I suspect.

Cheers all.

GunJack

are they 3 separate drives, or 3 partitions on one physical drive ?? Is one a factory restore partition ?? If so, do a factory reset, then use ccleaner to wipe the free space, and on the third partition (possibly called Data) just quick format it a couple of times....

fishybusiness

third partition (possibly called Data) just quick format it a couple of times....

Dead easy to recover data from a quick format - reason is...all it does is remove the headers from the disk indexing system.

I've done it maybe 20 or 30 times in the past.

Needs at least an all zero's wipe.

adamg02

Having a v.quick look and Dban seems easiest/popular way to go, so you probably on the right track there.

I would say your issue is not how to wipe the hard drive, but how to boot to CD. So you need to solve that - I would find another boot CD, and test to see if you can boot to that.

perhaps http://www.prime-expert.com/ebcd/ I think I've used/got EBCD at home, which I would recommend, but no idea if this is the correct/ok link. or otherwise windows install/recovery CD.

If you can boot to that^, well then there is a problem with your DBAN boot disc.. perhaps try creating again, or create a bootable USB.

This page has some useful info which may help with the bios setup http://www.prime-expert.com/ebcd/getting_started.php#Setting_up_BIOS