Need a disk wipe that works regardless of bad sectors.

I gave a friend a copy of DBaN and he called saying the disk wipe aborted just seconds after starting with an error that the disk has a bad sector.

DBaN has always been reliable; but, this kind of problem is becoming more common. In researching this problem, I have discovered many people are having similar problems with DBaN and the errors about bad sectors are usually erroneous.

Does anyone know of a free or low-cost, reliable program similar to DBaN that will run from a bootable CD that will wipe a disk with multiple passes and random characters?

 

Not really sure if you are looking for DOD standard....I was always under the impression one pass was enough, but here three you can look at.

First

Second Has a few listed options

Third

Hope it helps

Mitch

 

Thanks for the links; but, those are all Windows programs, except for DBaN and DBaN is the one that is giving so many people trouble. Whatever I use must run from a bootable CD.

I need a utility that is more reliable than DBaN has been lately (and is getting worse with newer hardware) as I use this in my work and I lose time and money when I run into these kinds of problems.

 

Take a look at: http://www.killdisk.com/

 

I tried KillDisk in the wee hours of this morning. It aborts unless the target disk is partitioned and formatted. It sees only partitions, not raw disks, the fine distinction being if the disk isn't partitioned and formatted, KillDisk doesn't see it and aborts immediately.

If I'm wrong about this, someone correct me; but, that is what happened when I tried it. It worked okay while the disk had a formatted partition; but, when I deleted the partition and tried again, it aborted.

Sometimes, the disks I am wiping have the partitions already deleted.

 

For those who might be interested, I have run across one that wipes disks whether they contain partitions or not. To be clear, it wipes disks in the raw, not just partitions. It's called CBL Data Shredder.

I'm not sure yet I won't run into some of the same problems wit CBL Data Shredder as I did with DBaN. That'll take some testing over time; but, it is another one to try.

 

I like Eraser. It uses DBAN technologies, but with a GUI front end.

 

Looks like CBL Data Shredder isn't practical for my use. It's been wiping a 160-Gig drive now for 10 hours 13 minutes and is only 59% finished. At this rate, it'll take 17 hours.

Eraser is a Windows program and won't run from a bootable CD.

 

Oops! Sorry, missed that in your opening post.

Perhaps the solution is to put the drive into another PC as a secondary (not boot) drive and run chkdsk /r on it. Once complete (which could take many hours or even a day or two if a big drive) then perhaps DBAN (or Eraser at this point) could be run on it.

If all else fails, and this drive is going in the trash (or preferably a precious metals recycle bin) what I have resorted to in the past is to drill 3 or 4 holes right through the drive (and platters) thus ensuring no one could use it.

 

Or better still, you or your kid could have a crash course in drive innards. Open up the drive & see whats inside.

Had tried it once. Gave a dead drive to my kids & they had a whale of time opening it up.

 

Looks like it's a sure thing that CBL Data Shredder isn't practical at all. In the end, it finally took about 32 hours to finish wiping this 160-Gig drive. Just to be sure the drive wasn't defective, I ran the manufacturer's advanced test on it and it passed.

 

Wow! That is a tremendously long time. I wonder if you ran it again, if it would take that long. Next time, you may just want to fill the drive with songs until you run out of space, then delete them and fill it again. That would prevent all but Abby (from NCIS ) from detecting any residual data left behind.

 

Yes, I have done exactly that before, and will again in a pinch. But that requires the drive be partitioned and formatted so I don't care much for that method as the standard operating procedure.

 

Agreed, but if you are wiping a drive, that suggests it already has been partitioned and formatted.

 

Not so. Not always. Then there are those drives that have multiple partitions and the utilities that require user participation and have to be restarted on the next partition after each partition is wiped. I want a start-it-and-walk-away wiper that wipes platters from start to end and ignores partition tables.

I want a worry-free, always-works-the-same utility that works 100% of the time. I'm trying to eliminate those "oh ****" moments.

It's beginning to look like there aren't any that work 100% of the time. It's a shame DBaN is falling behind.

 

Oh? I disagree. To start, in order for a drive to be written to, it must have at least one partition which must then be formatted to receive data.

The purpose of wiping is to prevent someone from intentionally, or inadvertently discovering left-over data that had previously been written to the disk. This is because formatting and deleting does not remove old data, it just marks the space as available. Therefore, if a drive has never been partitioned and formatted, it would not need wiping because nothing has been written to it.

Any wipe program must be able to write to the disk in order to wipe the data from it. Remember, it does not actually wipe, erase or delete the data, it writes a bunch of 1s and 0s into every storage location many many times. And the only way for there to be a storage location is if the disk has been partitioned and formatted.

I don't think DBAN is falling behind at all. It is not a disk repair tool. If the disk is damaged, it is not DBAN's job to fix it.

 

Okay, let's argue. We can do this all day; but, you are sidetracking my thread. I have defined what I am looking for and a program that will not wipe a drive unless it contains partitions and formatting is not it. If you do not understand the nuances and ramifications of each (partitioned and unpartitioned) and how a drive containing recoverable data might come to be without partitions and formatting, you may start your own thread and maybe someone will happen along and teach you.

I'll state it one more time: I need a program that wipes drives. I do not need a program that wipes only formatted partitions.

 

How about dd or shred ? Both of these work in Linux.

 

Thanks for the comments; but, I don't understand enough about Linux to use it effectively. I understand DBaN uses Linux; but, I didn't have to know or understand Linux command lines to make it work. It offered me a multiple-choice menu and made it easy for me.

I have tried to learn Linux. I've loaded up a system with it several times and gotten into forums and looked for help; but, I've always wound up quitting in disgust because everyone who tries to help, talks over my head.

I guess they don't understand what it means to not understand.

 

My intent is not to side track your thread, but inform you and readers of the facts. You say I don't understand but I am afraid it is you who don't.

For there to be data on a drive, it must have been at one time partitioned and formatted. You cannot write to a drive unless it has at least one partition on it. That one partition may take up the whole drive, but it still MUST be there. Whether the partitions are now corrupt, and the formatting is damaged or not is another matter.

The fact of the matter is, and I will state this one more time, in order for a wipe program to work, it must be able to write to the drive. That's what wipe programs do!!! That is how they work! Therefore, the drive must be partitioned and formatted.

Like DBAN, both of these program "overwrite" the disks with random data for dd, and zeros for shred. So again, the disks must have a file system laid down (formatted) in order to write to them.