Lack of CD-ROM drivers / Start Dban from Dos

[ClipClip]

Hi everybody!

First of all, let me tell you that I'm a little noob with all this stuff, so I'm sorry if I'm going to say something stupid.

Here is my problem:

I have an old computer (a Compaq Presario) with 2 hard drives in there; I want to sell/dispose/whatever all the components, including the hard drives. I already formatted both hard drives using the "regular" Dos commands, but I read that the data can be easily recovered with this kind of action, so I decided to wipe them with dban.

I downloaded dban-2.2.6_i586.iso and I burned it in a CD-RW (there is no problem using an CD-RW instead of a CD-R, right?) with CDBurnerXP. I can see the 8 files in the CD, so I believe I burned it successfully. I managed to go to the bios setup and define CD-Rom as the first boot device. However, after rebooting, I get the message "invalid system disk - replace the disk and then press any key" (the hard drives are empty, so I assume this is normal). I can listen the CD spinning in the drive, but it doesn't start dban.

I believe that the problem can be the lack of CD-ROM drivers, so I boot from a Windows 98 bootable floppy disk (which has CD-ROM drivers) and choose an option that said someting like "Dos with CD-Rom support". However, I have no idea how to run dban from Dos :|

I already read the FAQ and the part talking about loadlin, but honestly I didn't understand nothing... it says to copy kernel.bzi and another file from dban floppy disk, but I didn't even manage to locate those files...

So:

1 - can you tell me if I did anything wrong?

2 - if I'm in the right direction, can you tell me, step by step, how to run dban from Dos? Remember I'm a noob

Thanks in advance!

 

[DavidHB]

I don't think you did anything wrong. DBAN has not been supported for at least four years, and there is, apparently, some hardware it does not work with.

There is another (probably more active) DBAN forum on SourceForge. Alternatively, you could remove the drives, place them in a dock or caddy, attach them to the working computer you presumably have, and use Eraser or CCleaner to wipe the free (that is, presumably, all the) space.

David

 

[ClipClip]

Thanks for the quick answer, David :wink:

I managed to solve my problem with Eraser: I installed Windows 98 in the hard drive nº1 and wiped the free space of the nº2 with Eraser; then I formatted the hard drive nº1, I installed Windows 98 in the hard drive nº2 and wiped the free space of the hard drive nº1 with Eraser. Finally I formatted both hard drives using Dos commands. There was a Windows 98 and an Eraser installation that were not properly wiped with Eraser, but that's not a big problem

Thanks again,
ClipClip

 

[DavidHB]

For the benefit of other users, having removed the drives and attached them to another machine, you should format them before using Eraser. That way, everything is erased.

David