Drive Wiper?

I have an old (400mHz, 64MB RAM, 4GB HDD) eMachine that I want to completely wipe the drive. It will no longer complete a boot up (safe mode or otherwise). I can not get it to recognize the original system disk, but it will partially (not enough RAM) boot up from a Knoppix disk I recently created (with the help of some of you Geeks). I can not even get to a command prompt. A long time ago, I used a small program from a CD that would wipe a drive clean without a completed boot. I guess the disk contained the bare minimum resources it needed to start a system format. Can anyone recommend such a disk wiping utility that can be used from a CD? Free of course is the preference.

I am hoping I can use the original system disk with a clean drive.
Also, I would be open to other suggestions if you have any. I put the hard drive in question into my newer machine as a slave and it was recognized during the boot process but does not show up in 'My Computer' so that I can tinker with it there.

 

If ye wish to wipe the drive, then use, DBAN:

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4596

 

To be burned to CD as an image?

 

DBAN is the most famose software of this kind. But personally I use a tool called Privacy Expert. Generally speaking, it's widely a firewall and anti-spyware software but it also includes the drive cleen-up part. I found it on the majorgeeks:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Acronis_Privacy_Expert_Suite_d4797.html

 

System Restore on a eMachine eTower 400i

Drive wipe was successful but did not overcome one of the issues that I wanted it for. After wiping the drive, I put in the original system disk for a restore. I tried both Restore with Format and Restore w/out Format. I got this message both times (just like I did before I wiped the drive):

Anyone have suggestions to force the restore? Alternative free source OS (suitable for a child) that will operate on 64MB RAM?