Can I use my CD-ROM after running DBAN?

A

Anonymous

Guest
Does your "DBAN" product allow me to make certain that when I wipe my hard drive I will still be able to use the CD-ROM drive?

I had this problem before when I reformatted a previous hard drive--I was unable to use the CD-ROM drive so I could not reinstall my software.

Thanks for your assistance.

Graciously,
Traveler4God :)
 
If you have a standard ATAPI CD-ROM and a recent BIOS, then the Microsoft Windows installer will work.

If you have a non-ATAPI CD-ROM, like one that is connected to a sound card or other ISA device, then you may have problems.

It would be easier to assist you if you provided the make and model of your hardware.
 
In short, if it worked before DBAN, it will work after.

Going into more detail, it may require a lot of effort to get the appropriate software loaded to support your hardware, but nothing about hardware support is changed by DBAN. DBAN simply overwrites everything on the disk with garbage.

If you have a modern system, the BIOS should be able to access the CD-ROM, so you could just boot of the install CD and go from there. If that doesn't work, you may need to load DOS and some device drivers to access the CD-ROM. If that doesn't work, you may have to try other steps.

You can test this out right now. Make sure your BIOS is configured to try booting off the CD before trying the hard drive. Reboot your computer with a bootable CD in the drive (Windows 2000/XP install CDs are bootable, manufacturer's Windows "restore" CDs may or may not be). If you can boot off the CD, it works. If not, your device requires some sort of software for it to work properly. Once you've wiped your disk, you'll need to reinstall that same software to make the device work properly again.

That's the problem with your previous system. The system had something installed to make the device work before. After formatting, it no longer had that software, so the device didn't work. If you had reinstalled that software again, the device would've worked again.
 
Back
Top