Disk scrubbing software

[ugly_bob]

Know of any? free?
Need to permanently remove stuff from old work laptop

[vehelpfulguy]

This is very popular, DBan

http://www.dban.org/

[ACtheTROLL]

just about the industry standard
the site's help is not so good

some good directions here
http://www.heidi.ie/faq

[VHG]

Just in case you are confused by ACtheTROLLS link which has little mention of DBan.

It is actually shipped as part of the product Eraser.

So for the 21 questions under the Eraser heading, only some apply to DBan, others apply to the Eraser product.

If you download Eraser, you get DBan as part of the package, but Eraser has some disk wiping capabilities as well.

[ugly_bob]

thanks guys, I'll give it a look.

Is Killdisk any good? I downloaded that between question and answers

[VHG]

I have never used killdisk.

What IS important is that you boot from a diskette or CD and THEN do the disk scrubbing.

Programs that offer to do it from within Windows are only good for deleting "free space" on the disk, they cant of course scrub the Windows files if you are already runing in Windows (Windows will not allow you to delete it while it is running)

[ACtheTROLL]

I would have thought it was obvious that the faq relating to the question were the ones to read .... that's why I didn't include the offshore banking site and the rest.

basically if you need to wipe a disk totally you need a couple of things
1 It needs to be runable from some sort of bootable disk
2 It should conform to the DOD standards
http://www.killdisk.com/dod.htm
(and include the gutmann option)

you need to be prepared for a long wait
the more times you overwrite - the more secure - but the longer it takes.

[ugly_bob]

I've made a boot disk from Killdisk.
Want to completely wipe HDD, then reinstall Windows.
Think it should do it. I'll let you know

[ugly_bob]

OK, so only killdisk pro is DOD compliant - free version isn't - Am i reading the website right for that?

[ACtheTROLL]

yep you are and
vhg is right
the eraser / dban option is free - and one of the best .... and free.

the dod standard is easy enough to understand - and it's incorporated in many packages - the gutmann is the icing on the cake - and again is incorporated into most packages - eraser is the windows version - useful for killing files .... dban is the serious tool for killing whole disks (have I mentioned it's free?)


the good thing though is that in this case - it's free

[ugly_bob]

Ah free.
My favourite price.
I'll have a go with dban then.

Cheers guys