DBAN On External USB HDD

w4rp

New Member
Hello, couldn't find any clear answers on this.

Does DBAN clean a whole external HDD or does it only work with internal drives?

Thanks
 
Are you trying to erase the whole computer (with the external drive), or just the drive? For the latter job, I'd definitely use Eraser rather than DBAN.

For the former case, I'm afraid I don't know the answer; there is no guidance on the DBAN website, and the product is currently unsupported. You could try burning the ISO image and booting with it, so see what drives it finds. If that's too risky in your circumstances (as it may well be), use Eraser to clear the external drive, and then DBAN to 'nuke' the internal drives.

David
 
Yes I just want to erase the external HDD.

Eraser doesn't seem to do the job, it leaves filenames which can be recovered, which isn't good enough for me.

What is so risky about booting up the CD? Surely no harm done in just taking a look at which drives it recognizes?

Thank you for your help.
 
w4rp said:
Eraser doesn't seem to do the job, it leaves filenames which can be recovered, which isn't good enough for me.
What files does Eraser leave? Is it just the pesky protected stuff like System Volume Information and maybe the Recycled folder? Eraser can't touch files that the running system is protecting (and that, these days, is quite a lot, some of it even on non-system drives). Assuming that you are trying to clear the drive, I suggest that you erase what files on the drive you can, then do a quick format, then use Eraser to wipe the free space. Eraser doesn't usually leave file names, so if you still have an issue when you've done as I suggested, please post the details on the Eraser Support forum.

w4rp said:
What is so risky about booting up the CD? Surely no harm done in just taking a look at which drives it recognizes?
Given that the purpose of DBAN is to 'nuke' a whole system, I don't get to use it that often :) I therefore hesitate to advise somebody to try something which is so potentially destructive if it goes wrong, and which I haven't done myself ...

David
 
I didn't realize DBAN was so ruthless, I thought it would've at least gave you a final yes/no choice


You're probably right, I used CCleaner's wipe free space as well as Eraser, it could be that CCleaner is making those files visible to me, in Eraser however I get alot of error messages about it not being able to erase cluster tips.

Also I tried booting up dban, but it just hangs at a black screen with a line of text at the top when booting up.

When I put the CD in the drive and try to open it with explorer my OS stops responding until I eject it from the tray.

I'll format and erase free space with eraser, are you sure that it will have the same effect as DBANing internal hard drives? If necessary I would be okay with running DBAN on my internal hard drives (time for a reformat anyway) if it did the same to my USB drive.
 
w4rp said:
I didn't realize DBAN was so ruthless, I thought it would've at least gave you a final yes/no choice
I'm afraid I do not remember the exact sequence (hence the caution; it's rather a difficult app to test if you don't have a machine you want to nuke!). But there is advice on this forum that you should physically disconnect any drive you don't want wiped before you run DBAN. Joel replied that this is not strictly necessary if you know what you are doing, but I don't find that much comfort ...

w4rp said:
... in Eraser however I get a lot of error messages about it not being able to erase cluster tips.
Which are actually information rather than a problem. But they do indicate that you are not deleting (or erasing) everything on the drive before wiping the free space.

w4rp said:
Also I tried booting up dban, but it just hangs at a black screen with a line of text at the top when booting up.
Is your machine set up in the BIOS to boot from CD first?

w4rp said:
When I put the CD in the drive and try to open it with explorer my OS stops responding until I eject it from the tray.
As it is in, I think, Linux format, that would not be surprising.

w4rp said:
I'll format and erase free space with eraser, are you sure that it will have the same effect as DBANing internal hard drives?
Yes, though life is always full of surprises :) . If in doubt, run Recuva on the drive to check.

David
 
I'll be coding a drive nuke-like erasure target to erase non-system drives in Windows for Eraser soon (I've just finished implementing secure move.) I don't have a time frame, but I think that would solve quite a few of such requests.
 
Joel said:
I'll be coding a drive nuke-like erasure target to erase non-system drives in Windows for Eraser soon (I've just finished implementing secure move.) I don't have a time frame, but I think that would solve quite a few of such requests.
This is good news. For the longer term, will there be a portable version of Eraser that will do this? Ideally, I suppose, we would have a version that ran in an environment such as Bart PE, and so could erase system drives.

David
 
Well Eraser 6 is written in C#, which depends on .NET, and AFAIK BartPE doesn't support .NET.
 
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