100% machine wipe

Hello
I was having trouble making a bootable Dban usb. I spoke to someone at Windows who said reinstalling the OS from a disc I had bought would do the same thing including wiping then reinstalling the MBR and HPA. Is this correct? TY

 

No but it should be sufficient.

Dban is more for when you need days securely scrubbed.

 

Hi Adrynalyne, I would still like to wipe my machine if possible, for security reasons. I read Dban is no longer supported and doesn't work on Haswell Machines. Have you heard this? If so could you recommend a good wipe prog? Free if possible but I'll pay if I have to (poor)

 

Hey dizzynewbie, I just used Dban without any problems 2 days ago, but if you have time you can look at these and pick whatever is good for you. I've also used Active@KillDisk without any problems. Look here:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortname/wipers.html

 

That's great, I shall have a good read of that thread and try a few other options. And now I know my Dban troubles are due to my incompetence rather than problems with the prog :-o I might give it another go as well. Thank you Nick! :wave

 

Not all versions of DBAN will work with all machines. I have to use version 1.0.7 with my "old" Dell Precision M70. Later versions simply won't work. I don't, particularly, like the fact that it takes 19 hours and 43 minutes to wipe an 80 GB hard drive with a single pass (because I'm re-installing/installing Windows). rolleyes

 

I don't like the length of time Dban takes either mdonah, but it only took a little over 6 hours for my 698 GB hard drive and I think Active@ KillDisk was a bit faster on a 250 GB drive. When reinstalling I opt for the formatting the installation disk does, but at least now the OP can go through the list here at MG's and decided what they think is best for them.

 

I found out a few years ago that using the installer's formatting leaves remnants of the previous Windows installation behind and the re-installation never works properly (at least under XP). So, if I'm going to re-install, I use DBAN. But, I think I'm going to try Active@ KillDisk the next time I need to wipe.

I've used MiniTool Partition Wizard and AOMEI Partition Assistant from their CDs but, I'm not absolutely positive they don't leave something behind when they wipe drive/partition. I had problems re-installing Vista a week ago (I had to do it 4 times before it would "take" properly) after wiping the drive with BOTH AOMEI and MiniTool (yes, I ran several disk checking tools and they all reported a healthy drive as did chkdsk).

 

I don't believe that a fresh Windows install can be affected by 'leftovers' from a previous install. Yes, there will be stuff left over whether you use a scrubber or not, but each new install creates its own master file table and the only files it will recognise are those in its MFT. Any other tracks containing data are just treated as free space and available to be written to. I have never once cleaned a disk before a new install, it just isn't necessary.

 

I usually run Privazer after a reinstall to overwrite any "free space" on the disk in case of leftovers. Privazer usually picks up quite a few traces of leftovers.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/privazer.html

 

CCleaner can also be used to wipe the free space on a drive.
I have used this feature a few times. Be very careful and check more than once that you have the correct drive selected and you are overwriting the free space on it.

 

That's rather different from mdonah's belief that you need to do that before a fresh install, otherwise it may be corrupted. Personally I can't see any way that pre-existing data can affect a fresh install but with computers can you ever be absolutely certain about anything?