Posted on Saturday, 23rd September 2006 by Casey
My previous job was at a state university. Before sending our old computers off to auction, we had to wipe all hard drives according to Department of Defense 5220-22.M standards. This was to ensure the next owner would not be able to recover any sensitive files that were stored on the computer even through forensic analysis. Now I would like to show you how to wipe a hard drive following this same technique.
To wipe a hard drive according to DoD 5220-22.M standards, you need to download a free utility called DBAN. This utility will work on all Windows and Unix file systems. For Macs, you can download a different version here.
You can install DBAN on a floppy, USB flash drive, CD, or DVD. Once you have installed DBAN on your bootable media, place it in the computer that you want to wipe and reboot. Make sure that the computer is set to boot from the drive that you are trying to run DBAN from.
Once the computer boots into DBAN, you will be presented with a boot prompt. Hit enter to start DBAN in interactive mode.
Once you are in interactive mode, you can choose the wipe method by hitting the M key. The default method is DoD Short which should be fine. You can select the drives and partitions you want to wipe by using your spacebar. Hit F10 to start the wipe.
Depending on your drive size, the wipe could take a couple of hours. Once it has finished then the drive is safe to dispose of.
If you have had experience with DBAN or any other disk wiping utilities please feel free to share.
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Posted in Hardware, How To, Software, Tools | Comments (4)
October 3rd, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Como eliminar completamente todos los datos de un disco duro…
Vía Digg, me hago eco de esta utilidad para eliminar completamente los datos de un disco duro y hacer virtualmente imposible su posterior recuperación. Para todos aquellos con los que pensaron que un formateo era suficiente…Sirve tanto para sistema…
October 10th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Well I have not had any experience with the use of DBAN but I have made use of StompSoft’s Drive Washer (http://www.stompsoft.com/drivewasher.html) software which uses the U.S. Department of Defense 5220.22-M standard for disk-sanitization as well and is very easy to use. In fact this is the software that I generally recommend to those who ask me about what disk cleaning utility they should use when they are thinking about getting rid of their old computer.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Hi Man
stop error, hang up , freeze, My PC suddenly stop
responding. iam runing xp (p4).
is there any way to make Windows report this error,
thanks.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
when i start my pc up it pops up and says something bout dlls have been lost or something