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I would say that all the data on the hard drive has been erased so you should be OK - forensics won't be able to recover your data.

The answers are: 1. The quick method can only do 1 pass - you can't do more than that unless you re-run DBAN 2. What I suggested would be the better solution 3. You just need to use the options that you see when you load DBAN. When DBAN loads, choose the Psuedorandom Mersenne Twister...

You can stop Eraser from running at startup by going to the program and unclicking "Start Scheduler At Windows startup" To do this, start Eraser then Edit->Preferences->General->(click the Scheduler tab-> unclick "Start Scheduler At Windows startup"

Eraser wipes the free space. If it wiped the drive you would soon know - you wouldn't be able to boot your computer. DBAN wipes the entire drive.

yup, DBAN is what you are after.

The quick method just writes zeros (0000) to the hard drive. I don't consider that to be a secure wipe method. To do one secure wipe I suggest you do a pseudorandom pass with verification. It performs a random wipe, a zero (blanking) wipe and then verifies the wipe.

what you are seeing is correct. After running Eraser on a free space wipe you will see thousands of zero byte files with random names. These now occupy the space that the data used to and as a result the data that was there should be unrecoverable. I can't say with 100% certainty that what was...

ident: no need to worry. A reboot after running eraser will sort out the fonts problem (it was myself who wrote the post that you have quoted in message number one). I would also suggest NOT using the computer as kringle has suggested he / she does while running a free space wipe as this may...

Hi parachute. By "decade" I meant back to about 1998 - ie 10 years ago. I have to admit I don't know anything about hard drives from before then. Weren't most of them just small, 2GB? Just overwrite it several times and I would imagine it would be OK though I couldn't vouch for that. If you...

firstly, what version of Eraser have you installed? Just checking it's the latest version. As for using Eraser, the help file is quite comprehensive, it's accessible from the main Eraser screen. I suggest you do not use Eraser until you have read how to use it. I have the scheduler option...

answer is below.

very old hard drives apparently require much longer passes to be certain that the data is not recoverable, ie the Peter Guttman 35 pass method. His article is reproduced here: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... e_del.html You will notice the original article is from July 1996 and...

The DBAN developer states that the defaults are sufficient for most people. I believe the default method is the short DoD option (and is activated by typing "autonuke" at the DBAN splash screen). The Quick method merely blanks the disk, that is it overwrites the data with zeros. All other...

if you run the default (which I think is a 3 pass DoD) it should take about 8 to 10 hours for a 200GB drive. Probably closer to the former.

The problem with fonts after running Eraser is a well known bug, though the bug is with Windows rather than Eraser! Windows doesn't like the font files being touched, which is what Eraser tries to do (by cleaning the cluster tips) in the Cluster Tips Area overwrite. The solution, as you have...

1. No problem at all - I never save any logs. I think that message is to do with an old version of DBAN and isn't necessary. 2. This message can be ignored too, again it's an old message that refers to an old version of DBAN. If you have the disk to reinstall the operating system you'll be fine.

using the freespace wipe in Eraser is a better option than "sanitising" deleted files via Recuva or similar programmes. It does a similar - but better - operation though it takes longer. Eraser wipes ALL of freespace, Recuva just wipes the spare clusters (which are in freespace) in which the...

it was probably the defrag that made the computer run faster - the freespace wipe shouldn't make such a big difference to the speed at which your computer will run. For added security I would suggest doing another freespace wipe after doing a defrag. But I would suggest doing just a 1 pass -...

I think using 100 x PRNG is TOTAL overkill. If you have sensitive data that requires that much sanitising then I suggest getting a new hard drive and suitably disposing of the current HD. Seriously, 1 pass should be enough but for security I would suggest that a 8 pass is more than sufficient...

I didn't realise it was for a five year old version of XP! That means probably XP SP1? If so, perhaps you could obtain the SP2 update disk (SP2 was released in August 2004). You'll still have many updates after that though - this computer I'm using was manufactured in March 2006, when I first...