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I read in the rules thread that DBAN is the popular tool for wiping hard drives. However, the last version of DBAN that was released was almost 2 years ago. I'm currently running windows vista with an I7 processor that doesn't seem to be compatible with DBan because it is running extremely slow for even a single wipe. And so I ask, does anyone who has current hardware have any experience with any effective alternative software to DBAN that they could recommend?
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:10 |
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| # ? Nov 22, 2009 10:55 |
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DBAN is slow, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your OS is irrelevant. Your processor is irrelevant. Nothing is going to speed up how fast DBAN can write a zero to every sector on your hard drive except getting a faster hard drive. There is nothing better than DBAN, and everything similar is going to have the exact same speed limitation. So go find something to do while it nukes your drive.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:23 |
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inpheaux posted:DBAN is slow, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your OS is irrelevant. Your processor is irrelevant. Nothing is going to speed up how fast DBAN can write a zero to every sector on your hard drive except getting a faster hard drive. There is nothing better than DBAN, and everything similar is going to have the exact same speed limitation. Pretty much this. DBAN hasn't been updated because there's pretty much nothing to update, changing every bit on your drive is going to take a while and is, as pointed out, 100% determined by the speed of your hard drive and nothing else. VV No one has EVER successfully recovered ANYTHING from a single DBAN pass. Not even filenames or anything resembling usable information. Reduce to 1 pass and you'll triple your speed. Bam. univbee fucked around with this message at Nov 03, 2009 around 05:37 |
| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:26 |
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Three days for a three wipe pass on a 600gb hard drive slow? Well that sucks. But thanks for the info guys. I only said it might be working against me because I had to resort to using an earlier version in order to actually get it to work.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:31 |
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Philosopher King posted:Three wipe pass on a 600gb hard drive
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:33 |
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inpheaux posted:Why did you think this was a good idea? Dude, he doesn't want anyone recovering his pronz
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:38 |
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skipdogg posted:Dude, he doesn't want anyone recovering his pronz I saw it on the popular documentary series "CSI".
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:40 |
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inpheaux posted:Why did you think this was a good idea? Still trying to work out how to get it down to a single wipe  already aborted one attempt at a wipe at 00.04% and now Vista won't start up. All I wanted was a fresh start for Windows 7.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:41 |
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Philosopher King posted:Still trying to work out how to get it down to a single wipe
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:48 |
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bob arctor posted:Delete the partition and install in the empty space? Unless you have something you really want to hide that should be just as effective. Can I do that without being able to access my OS? I just heard that using a clean install of Windows 7 would be easier than updating from Vista to Windows 7.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:50 |
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Philosopher King posted:Can I do that without being able to access my OS? I just heard that using a clean install of Windows 7 would be easier than updating from Vista to Windows 7. I don't know how 7 handles the disk partitioning part of the install. Previous versions of windows have let you delete the old windows partition and install in the empty space.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:57 |
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bob arctor posted:I don't know how 7 handles the disk partitioning part of the install. Previous versions of windows have let you delete the old windows partition and install in the empty space. Alrighty, sounds like a plan then. Thank you guys very much.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:57 |
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Philosopher King posted:Can I do that without being able to access my OS? I just heard that using a clean install of Windows 7 would be easier than updating from Vista to Windows 7. Well, at this point you have a clean disk, since you blew away the partition table at the least. Go ahead and pop that disk in and it'll install right up.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 05:57 |
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At three days for 1800 GB on a disk that should be able to minimally sustain 60 MB/second of writes, it sounds to me like your drive is failing, honestly. Check the SMART error counters and you'll probably see a good number of offline uncorrectable sectors.
Misogynist fucked around with this message at Nov 03, 2009 around 06:07 |
| # ? Nov 03, 2009 06:05 |
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While I understand and agree with Gromit's fine work in proving that only one pass of overwrites is needed, it is understandable that most people assume otherwise. Dban itself describes its own single-pass option as "weak", and that it should only be used for casual wiping. (Dban is a mean time vampire  )
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 06:19 |
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To answer the OP's original question, I've always used the free version of KillDisk. It's consistently updated, has a nice interface, and does a 1-pass zero erase pretty quick (a 320gb SATA II drive only took me about an hour). Unless you are throwing away hard drives for the government, it'll work just fine for you.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 07:25 |
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Misogynist posted:At three days for 1800 GB on a disk that should be able to minimally sustain 60 MB/second of writes, it sounds to me like your drive is failing, honestly. Check the SMART error counters and you'll probably see a good number of offline uncorrectable sectors. Is it common to have hard drives fail? Is there something I could have done to cause it? The darn thing is less than 6 months old. Will wiping the whole thing repair it in any way? Also, how damaging is it to stop a drive wipe mid wipe? Philosopher King fucked around with this message at Nov 03, 2009 around 11:34 |
| # ? Nov 03, 2009 11:30 |
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I had a similar problem when I bought a new machine a few years ago. I had a new Intel chipset and when I went to DBAN an old drive it took forever. The author released a beta which fixed the issue at the time. It went from 2 days to 4 hours after the update (for one pass). It looks like he hasn't updated the software since then.
akadajet fucked around with this message at Nov 03, 2009 around 11:55 |
| # ? Nov 03, 2009 11:44 |
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Philosopher King posted:Is it common to have hard drives fail? Is there something I could have done to cause it? The darn thing is less than 6 months old. Will wiping the whole thing repair it in any way? Also, how damaging is it to stop a drive wipe mid wipe? Yes it is very common for drives to fail, they are made up of very, very sensitive instruments and any defect in manufacturing, any slight bump during the wrong time while it is writing something, any weird magnetic interference your house generates, and any thing else someone can put in here. Hard drives are usually the number one thing to fail (besides PSUs) Wiping your drive will not repair the drive if it is having problems. If the problem is due to bad clusters, you can do a chkdsk /p in recovery console and that would mark the bad sectors, but if it is making bad sectors, then there are probably other problems with it. It is not damaging to stop a drive mid wipe. Wiping the drive simply overwrites what is on the drive with 0s. Unless you weren't planning on overwriting your drive, then no it is not damaging, but how did you stop the wipe? did you unplug your computer? or did you stop it in the program?
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 11:59 |
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Philosopher King posted:Three days for a three wipe pass on a 600gb hard drive slow? I wiped a 1TB drive today in 3.5 hours or so for a single pass, but that was using a hardware device made for the job (well, it also images drives and other stuff.) Using something like DBAN I would expect a single pass on that drive to be done in no more than 4 hours, and probably quite a bit less. Like Misogynist said, you probably have some faulty hardware.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 12:54 |
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Secure erase is much faster and actually NIST certified- DBAN is not http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 15:13 |
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Studebaker Hawk posted:Secure erase is much faster Considering the hard drive is the only real bottleneck, I fail to see how this or any other program can magically make hardware exceed its limitations. Studebaker Hawk posted:NIST certified- DBAN is not Please back this up with a reason why this is in any way important or useful.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 15:20 |
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Well, in this case we should probably be doing the Gutmann method on the OPs drive. That'll surely get that finicky data off!
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 15:46 |
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Accipiter posted:Please back this up with some real data. I don't understand the secure erase command, but before being too snarky you might want to read this. http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/...ionTutorial.pdf <- This is a great article by the way. Secure Erase posted:Complete eradication of user data off drives can be accomplished by running data Secure Erasure utilities such as the freeware “HDDerase” downloadable here. It executes the Federally-approved (NIST 800-88) Secure Erase command in the ATA ANSI standard, which is implemented in all recent ATA drives greater than 15-20 GB. A similar command in the SCSI ANSI standard is optional and not yet implemented in drives tested. Normal Secure Erase takes 30-60 minutes to complete. Some ATA drives also implement the standard Enhanced Secure Erase command that takes only milliseconds to complete. Accipiter posted:Please back this up with a reason why this is in any way important or useful. Secure Erase posted:Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SBA) SEC Rule 17a Now for the OP's purposes it looks like secure erase would be faster. For the purposes of people with actual regulations to comply with it looks like this will be even more important. bob arctor fucked around with this message at Nov 03, 2009 around 15:59 |
| # ? Nov 03, 2009 15:50 |
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bob arctor posted:Now for the OP's purposes it looks like secure erase would be faster. For the purposes of people with actual regulations to comply with it looks like this will be even more important. For the OP's purpose, it looks like he was confused and didn't realize that he could just pop the Windows 7 install disc in, blow away the previous partition, and install fresh on top of that. There's no reason for him to be "securely" erasing the drive. Honestly, if you ever need to erase a drive securely, shouldn't you just take it out and beat it with a loving hammer or blow it away with a shotgun? Seems like that would be faster and you'd get the same result. As long as you destroy the platters, there is no way anyone is going to recover anything off the drive (right?). Also, shotgun is more fun and much faster than some ridiculous 24 hour wipe. Granted, I realize that for some government/healthcare/NSA stuff they have a "MUST WIPE DRIVE WITH XXX" policy in place, but for the home user who wants to ensure that an old hard drive is non-recoverable, I think physical destruction is the way to go.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 16:01 |
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The dude wants to format his drive to install a new operating system. He doesn't have super sensitive CIA poo poo that needs to be run through a shredder and then dropped in a volcano. Not to mention, lots of BIOSes block the ATA SE command, so it's not like it's a 100% readily available solution.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 16:01 |
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Un-l337-Pork posted:For the OP's purpose, it looks like he was confused and didn't realize that he could just pop the Windows 7 install disc in, blow away the previous partition, and install fresh on top of that. There's no reason for him to be "securely" erasing the drive. Sometimes agencies, like mine, donate computers to other organizations. When we do this, we DBAN the drive and donate it. DBAN is free, most stuff that erases drives are not. Users can also do this when they plan on, say, giving the computer to a relative or a friend so that none of their secure data is shared. Most users, however are dumb.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 16:33 |
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Anyone else use GWScan? I work mainly with old hardware though so I don't know how well it does with newer stuff.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 16:40 |
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Gromit posted:I wiped a 1TB drive today in 3.5 hours or so for a single pass, but that was using a hardware device made for the job (well, it also images drives and other stuff.) I don't think that there is faulty hardware, DBAN 1.07 is using an old version of the Linux Kernel (2.4 something) and it doesnt recognise newer SATA controllers (the newer beta version might) If the BIOS has IDE compatibilty mode it could work, but usually at a low DMA mode that runs at 3Meg per second. hence the long wipe times quote:Well, in this case we should probably be doing the Gutmann method on the OPs drive. That'll surely get that finicky data off! I spoke to a customer who told me he had used DBAN before, as he used it to Guttman wipe for his drives at home 
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 16:47 |
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Well since it looks like I have a faulty hard drive wouldn't I be best off just buying a new one? Or does having a bad hard drive just mean I can't use certain clusters and it will just suck for speed purposes?
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 18:14 |
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Philosopher King posted:Well since it looks like I have a faulty hard drive wouldn't I be best off just buying a new one? Or does having a bad hard drive just mean I can't use certain clusters and it will just suck for speed purposes? Depends on how it is broken. If you suspect your hard drive is borked, get a new one, or RMA the one you bought. I'd DBAN it though before you sent it out.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 18:21 |
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Don't try to use a broken hard drive. Replace it.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 18:25 |
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I'm pretty sure my hard drive is broken and I think I know why. Earlier this year I built my own desk top and put this guy in it http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16822136319 Unfortunately, I thought something was off, and I think I know what it is. Aren't hard drives supposed to be in a sort of protective case when you install them rather than just chucking em in there? I'm pretty sure my laptop hard drive had some sort of case around it.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 18:49 |
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Maybe a caddy or rails or something, but yeah, thats a HDD. Unless you mean it had arms flailing around and you could see poo poo spinnin'
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 18:51 |
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Philosopher King posted:Unfortunately, I thought something was off, and I think I know what it is. Aren't hard drives supposed to be in a sort of protective case when you install them rather than just chucking em in there? I'm pretty sure my laptop hard drive had some sort of case around it.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 18:54 |
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inpheaux posted:You do know that the image for WD drives at newegg is just for show, right? Real drives all ship with a plate on the top. If yours somehow didn't (what the gently caress?), and you STILL used it, then you are the dumbest motherfucker in the world. Nah, it has the plate. I guess I was just expecting a caddy that comes with laptop hard drives. No, I can't see poo poo spinning.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 18:56 |
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Philosopher King posted:I'm pretty sure my hard drive is broken and I think I know why. Earlier this year I built my own desk top and put this guy in it Uh. So is this a secondary drive or the original drive in question? For one, the drives in laptops are usually put in a "case" because it fits in with the form factor of the laptop. Servers have the same thing sometimes, but that is for removing drives in a hurry. Regular desktops usually have a drive sitting in the computer, screwed into the chassis, like I'm hoping you probably did. If the drive failed, its probably because of a reason I listed above, not because you installed it properly (hopefully) and thought you did it wrong. edit: it should look like 
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 19:16 |
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g3k posted:I'd DBAN it though before you sent it out. This deserves more  than it's getting.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 20:22 |
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inpheaux posted:DBAN is slow, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your OS is irrelevant. Your processor is irrelevant. Nothing is going to speed up how fast DBAN can write a zero to every sector on your hard drive except getting a faster hard drive. There is nothing better than DBAN, and everything similar is going to have the exact same speed limitation. With some hardware configurations, it runs the same. However, DBAN 2.0 runs significantly slower than 1.x did with other hardware configurations. I keep both a 1.x disc and a 2.x disc around. I first try 2.x and then usually pop 1.x in and reboot if 2.x goes too slow. I've had DBAN crash on me when I hit F10 before. I've gone back and forth between 1.x and 2.x because sometimes one works when the other doesn't. DBAN is buggy and really needs an update.
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 20:59 |
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bob arctor posted:Some ATA drives also implement the standard Enhanced Secure Erase command that takes only milliseconds to complete. I've never had any luck running SE with any of the hardware I've attempted it on - it's always been blocked by the motherboard or something. However, I'm still doubtful that you could trust a wipe pass that took "milliseconds to complete".
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| # ? Nov 03, 2009 23:46 |
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