Dban Non-fatal Error on Toshiba laptop

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Rock4ever

New Member
I have a Toshiba P200-1EZ with Ati mobility radeon Hd2600, Fujitsu MHX2250BT hardrive running Vista

I want to Dban it to sell it
but i run into a problem when atempt to Dban (dod,Autonuke etc..)

get this message after 1 minutte :
"Dban finished with non-fatal errors"

Now for the Dban am I missing some drivers to get Dban to work on my computer Toshiba P200-1Ez?

I do also sometimes atach a Iomega external hardisk
but i guess this is not the problem since is not conected during the dban

The Dban version i used was 1.0.7 burnt on a CD (tested it on other pcs it work fine)

The only dvd Toshiba came with is a Recover/Installation Vista dvd
(it say warning all data will be erased using this disk)

Any suggestion what i can do to get My drive Dbanned ?
 
I got an email from Dban saying that for my Laptop the Pre-release of dban will work best whatever that version is ?

I will try both the pre-release version and the latest beta version
later today

and i will also try Bcwipe:
http://www.jetico.com/bcwipe3.htm

Anyone having a experience with how good Bcwipe is
it can be bootable too and i think it has the Dod standard 7 pass
like dban has

but i will try Dban first since i like it better
 
I tried 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 both gives the non-fatal error
but then i tried the latest beta (2.29?) i got into interactive mode
and my drive showed up , so i guess is working ?

How safe is dod7 on the beta compared to 1.0.7
since is beta can it leave something unwiped and still say is wiped?
or is it pretty safe as long as the program say is wiped.
 
Rock4ever said:
I tried 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 both gives the non-fatal error
but then i tried the latest beta (2.29?) i got into interactive mode
and my drive showed up , so i guess is working ?

How safe is dod7 on the beta compared to 1.0.7
since is beta can it leave something unwiped and still say is wiped?
or is it pretty safe as long as the program say is wiped.
Click to expand...
it will be fine. The Beta (April 29, 2007 beta) never made it as a stable release (from what I can see) because the author decided to concentrate on his commercial version of DBAN and put the DBAN project on the back burner.

There is a DBAN 2 pre-release (the one you are referring to), never tried that yet but based on what I have seen of DBAN I would feel safe in assuming that if it loads and runs fine then it will have worked fine. I assume DoD7 on the beta is much the same as on 1.0.7 and is therefore safe.

Personally I would use the pseudorandom (PRNG) pass method (I used Mersenne Twister though there are other PRNG methods available, the ISAAC one is supposed to be better). Running a 8 pass PRNG is considered to be high security, although it's probably overkill in terms of the amount of wipes you need to do (one pass is considered enough by many people).
 
Whats the difference between the 8pass PRNG and the 7 Pass DOD?
Is 8Pass PRNG more secure?
(isnt 7 pass dod high security as well?)

what word command do i type in Dban to perform a 8 pass PRNG?

and what about ISAAC is it more secure than the 2 above
and what word command do i type in to do a ISAAC with the latest beta?
 
I haven't seen the new release of DBAN but assuming it's much the same layout as before the PRNG choice should be on the same screen as all the other methods (eg Dod 3 pass, DoD 7 pass). Choosing that will (I think) take you to another screen to choose the PRNG method (there may be 3 choices now, Mersenne, ISAAC and Schneier (?), something like that). You then need to enter the number of passes and then choose to turn verification off, on for all passes or on for the last pass (the latter is what I do).

ISAAC (and other PRNG methods) are judged to have higher security than the DoD 7 pass but really they are just different methods of filling the hard drive with data to overwrite what is there. The last pass with DBAN then blanks the disk so it then looks unused (it is written with all zeros). As far as I can see PRNG methods fill the disk with random data whereas DoD 7 has an element of predictability about it (some of the passes, at least, have pre-ordained patterns of overwriting which apparently make them less secure, can't see how to be honest).

Unless you are trying to dispose of a disk with national secrets (inj which case destruction of the disk would be a better choice anyway!) I wouldn't worry too much about which method you use (other than the Gutmann method which is a waste of time and effort). A few passes with any method is going to render recovery of data impossible.

When I've sold a computer in the past I've used the 8 pass Mersenne Twister PRNG and then ran one blanking pass to finish it all off (no need to do the latter really since it is done after the 8 passes in the first operation anyway). The ISSAC PRNG is said to be more secure and I don't know about that third one.

Here's a tutorial to DBAN from an educational establishment, written for students (it's a PDF file):

http://www.security.ku.edu/download/DBAN_Tutorial.pdf

it's for DBAN 1.0.4 but up to the 29 April 07 beta it was pretty much the same layout. Unless v2 has altered drastically it may be useful to have a look through.
 
My guess is the last one schneier take forever just like the gutmanns
so i probaly be best of with either a 7Pass dod or a 8pass ISAAC

say I start with 8 pass isaac an the remaining time looks like it be too long
can i then just Reboot Dban by force (reset) and start the 7 Pass dod
or can i risk render the hardisk useless if i do that?

Normaly it used to take 10-12 hours for a Dod 7 pass on previous Pcs i sold

more than that is not aceptable for me

As far i understand it you say both 7Pass dod and 8 Pass ISAAC
is almost as secure just different metods , except ISAAC is more random

Probaly i will be fine with any of the 2 since is most the Feeling of dont giving away confidential information upon selling a Pcs
and probaly not many would bother use a Recover tool on the hardisk to find what was on it, but since i cannot be sure and there is many strange people out there is best to be safe

anyway , so to run a 8 pass ISAAC
do i just write "ISAAC" in the command line
or do i have to enter interactive mode for this?
 
I would run it in interactive mode if I were you, it's easier to set up the method and number of passes you want to run. That tutorial can also be used then as it's written for interactive mode. I've never used DBAN from the command line so I wouldn't have a clue how to run it like that. I always boot into the interactive mode.

DBAN can be terminated in the middle of being run without any problem (I've done it before myself). Just power down the computer to stop DBAN running. Then start up the computer again (after inserting the CD of course!) and rerun DBAN.

That Schneier PRNG - is that a 30+ pass or something? If so, then it's totally over the top!
 
Ok i started the Dban
but it take forever

i expected about 10 or 12 hours but it says 16 hours and still climbing
i using PRGN mersenne twister Dod 5220.22m 7pass

the throughput is around 37594 KBs

when i ran dban on another laptop it took about 10 hours the same time
could it be that it is very slow on laptops with vista on?
or is it because my laptop has a Core 2 Duo ?

Im running the latest beta of dban

Now the remaining say 17 hours

In 14 Minutes Dban has gone through 01.35% of the hardisk

Edit:
remaining time is beginning to climb down but only a little bit
so i probaly must expect something between 15-17 hours :(
atleast it is working
 
that sounds far too slow as well. The throughput slows down as the program runs so it sounds like it will slow to a crawl at some point

Which DBAN version are you using? The 29 April 2007 beta or the v2.0 pre-release version?

If the latter, try the other (29 April 2007) beta version. I used that on my Toshiba laptop and it worked well and while not as quick as using DBAN on a PC it was still quick enough for me.

Having vista on a laptop or even a PC shouldn't make DBAN run slow as DBAN just obliterates the operating system! It must be a drivers (on the motherboard?) or the type of disk issue. Unfortunately I'm not that technically minded to be able to guess what it could be.
 
Robbie said:
Which DBAN version are you using? The 29 April 2007 beta or the v2.0 pre-release version?

If the latter, try the other (29 April 2007) beta version. I used that on my Toshiba laptop and it worked well and while not as quick as using DBAN on a PC it was still quick enough for me.
Click to expand...

Im running Beta.2007042900
Im going to try the PRNG Stream ISAAC
but it wont let me select passes
i wanted to do a 8 Pass as you sugested

but only let me select Rounds like 8 rounds with 1 pass
 
First Thanks for answerings my questions so far:

Things is in PRNG both Mersenne twister and ISAAC the max pass i can get is 1 pass , however i can change the rounds to as many i want

So is this correct can you not set the passes in PRNG only rounds?

And is 8 rounds and 1 pass = 1 Rounds and 8 passes (same security?)

Just made be bit confused since you said you do 8 Passes PRNG
did you meant you just did 8 Rounds and 1 Pass ?
 
yeah, sorry, I meant 8 rounds of one pass - it overwrites the disk from start to finish and when it has done that it starts all over again and does that for the amount of times selected in the rounds. So for 8 rounds it would perform the whole operation 8 times. After all that it then runs a one round blanking pass, writing zeros to the hard drive.
 
ok Thanks

One thing, say i start Dban in PRNG stream 8 rounds
and after 4 rounds i see it take too much time
can i Quit resetting pc after 5 rounds and HD is still wiped
or is it not wiped as long 8 rounds is completed

if it gone so far as 4 passes and 10 hours as it has now
I rather dont reduce the pass starting from the scratch

so is it okey to reset after 6 rounds of the 8 are completed

and then maybe do a Dod short for blanking
 
each round is a complete wipe of the hard drive so if you quit after 5 rounds you have wiped the hard drive 5 times.

All you need to do is run one blanking pass after that, rather than DoD short, which is another three passes. There is an option for the blanking pass in the interactive wipe method screen (it shows as Quick Erase). It is a write of zeros to the hard drive.
 
Ok thanks
I finished the Dban now

After all i did both
First a Dod 7 Pass which took 24 hours
then a PRNG 10 round which took 30 hours

Mostly did the last one for testing purpose
to see how long it would take

I did not do a blanking after this since is already overkill
as the disc was blanked both in dod once and in PRNG
but now i feel safe selling the pc :P

thanks for the help
 
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