ERASER/DBAN for laptop when there is no separate WIN7 CD?

[formatting07]

Hi Eraser Support/Other helpful users,

I wonder for Eraser and DBAN, do they work well on laptop where nowadays most of the laptops with Windows 7 software are pre-loaded in part of the hard disk? (so the laptop is with a Windows 7 license, but only that it does not come with a separate Windows 7 CD. Since part of the hard disc is pre-loaded with Windows 7), I wonder if Eraser and DBAN would work Ok.

If they don't work this way, would you please let me know what my options are to completely erase the data on the hard drive of my laptop?

Thanks for your help.

 

[DaveDone2]

Re: ERASER/DBAN for laptop when there is no separate WIN7 CD

I do not know about the other questions, but DBAN will remove EVERYTHING INCLUDING windows 7 operating system. Use DBAN with care. It starts at the first sector and stops when it gets to the last sector on the drive. That may not be what you want.

 

[formatting07]

Re: ERASER/DBAN for laptop when there is no separate WIN7 CD

I do not know about the other questions, but DBAN will remove EVERYTHING INCLUDING windows 7 operating system. Use DBAN with care. It starts at the first sector and stops when it gets to the last sector on the drive. That may not be what you want.

Hi DaveDone2,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I understand that DBAN will remove everything including the Windows 7 operating system (the active OS that is on the laptop), but I would like to know if it will also erase the small partition of the hard drive where the laptop company set aside for storing the original licensing copy (which is what is stored on a separate Windows 7 CD for a desktop). I really want to make sure, because if it does remove it, it means that I also destroy $100 U.S+, because most laptops nowadays do not come with a separate CD for Windows7 (instead they just set aside a partition on the hard drive to store it).

If anyone could help I would very much appreciate. Thanks.

 

[DavidHB]

Re: ERASER/DBAN for laptop when there is no separate WIN7 CD

In theory, you can select which partitions to erase with DBAN. But given the possible damage, I would not even launch DBAN (something I don't do all that often!) on a machine unless everything I wanted to keep were backed up to external media. Partition handling programs can do this with most partition formats.

If you do use DBAN, you will need some means of launching the partition recovery. Most laptops have a utility to create a recovery bootable CD/DVD. Make and test a couple, to be sure.

David

 

[formatting07]

Re: ERASER/DBAN for laptop when there is no separate WIN7 CD

In theory, you can select which partitions to erase with DBAN. But given the possible damage, I would not even launch DBAN (something I don't do all that often!) on a machine unless everything I wanted to keep were backed up to external media. Partition handling programs can do this with most partition formats.

If you do use DBAN, you will need some means of launching the partition recovery. Most laptops have a utility to create a recovery bootable CD/DVD. Make and test a couple, to be sure.

David

Hi DavidHB,

Thanks for your reply. I have read some other posts of related topic, and I figured out perhaps I should do the following steps if I don't use DBAN and decide to go for the ERASER route. Would you please take a look if it's good enough to do it this way? Thanks.

1) Download ERASER and then use it to erase the folder and files that I want to delete.
2) Use the laptop formatting utility to delete Windows 7 and then load Windows 7 again from the recovery partition.
3) Once Windows 7 is reinstalled, download Eraser again and use it to erase free space again to make sure everything is gone.

Am I missing anything here? Also, would you please let me know for ERASER, which version is now stable and best to use?

Thanks again.

 

[DavidHB]

Re: ERASER/DBAN for laptop when there is no separate WIN7 CD

Yes, I think that your proposed method is entirely correct; it is the essentially the one I used on my own old XL laptop a month or two back.

Although the 'safe' recommendation is to download the current stable build (6.0.7), I have to say that the current 6.1 development build (6.1.0.2243) is running very well on one of my machines (I have the closely related 2241 on the other). While development builds may not always be stable, this one seems closer to fixing the outstanding glitches in Eraser than 6.0.7, and a few useful new features and UI changes (e.g. secure move, drive/partition erase for non system drives) have also been added.

David