Need Quickest Way to Wipe HDD

I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows 10
computer for wiping?

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer and
friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe methods
will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a discussion of
military wipe options that take a long time. A simple disk format will
suffice. Thanks.

On 11/06/2019 22.46, M. L. wrote:
I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

Use the "secure SATA erase" feature.

Forget the "secure" in the phrase, it is just the name of the thing.
Once triggered, the disk wipes itself without needing action from the
host computer, except power. There are programs in Windows to do it, but
I can't google for them now. Being able to do it over an external USB
disk holder is a possibility that may or may not work, depends on chipset.

Don't to a format (or initialize disk), that erases nothing, except a
few sectors.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2019-06-11 3:46 p.m., M. L. wrote:
I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows 10
computer for wiping?

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer and
friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe methods
will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a discussion of
military wipe options that take a long time. A simple disk format will
suffice. Thanks.





CCleaner is free and has a drive wiper.

Rene

In article ,
Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 11/06/2019 22.46, M. L. wrote:
I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.
....
Don't to a format (or initialize disk), that erases nothing, except a
few sectors.

It seems to me that OP went to pretty explicit lengths to tell us that
"security" is not a concern. I.e., he's not worried about making the disk
unreadable by other people (i.e., hackers).

Instead, it sounds like the only concern is to erase it so that a new OS (or
something or whatever) can be installed on it.

P.S. If you *do* want to make the disk unreadable by anyone - i.e., if you
are throwing it away - then a shotgun will do it quite nicely.

--
"He is exactly as they taught in KGB school: an egoist, a liar, but talented - he
knows the mind of the wrestling-loving, under-educated, authoritarian-admiring
white male populous."
- Malcolm Nance, p59. -

On 6/11/2019 4:46 PM, M. L. wrote:
I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows 10
computer for wiping?

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer and
friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe methods
will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a discussion of
military wipe options that take a long time. A simple disk format will
suffice. Thanks.

I think to adequately do what you want, we should know for what purpose
the disk is being wiped.

If it is being wiped with the idea of reinstalling the OS to get a "new"
computer that is one thing.

IF the disk is to be used as a back up disk that is some thing else.


If the disk is to be used as a back up disk the easiest way to wipe it
without security concerns is to connect the disk to the computer, and
reformat the disk using the OS Reformat on he host computer.


I have done this when a computer fails. I first get the data from the
disk by putting it in a USB enclosure and take off the data I want. A
couple weeks later after I sure I have every thing of value, I then
reformat it and set it up with the folders I want on a backup disk.




--
Judge your ancestors by how well they met their standards not yours.
They did not know your standards, so could not try to meet them.

M. L. wrote:
I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows 10
computer for wiping?

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer and
friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe methods
will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a discussion of
military wipe options that take a long time. A simple disk format will
suffice. Thanks.

It helps a lot if we know the (operational) OS on the machine.

Also, do you want to keep the OS drive and just erase
a data drive, or are you erasing the entire machine
so it can be donated to the recycler company ?

diskpart

list disk

select disk 2

list partition === good if you want to verify which partitions are
about to be deleted.

clean all === this will erase the *entire* disk 2, every byte
will be zeroed. This could easily take hours to do!

clean === this only erases the MBR and partition table,
giving the "appearance" of clean. But TestDisk
could recover the disk if you do this. This
takes about a microsecond to complete.

exit

The disks are in the same order as Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).
Thus, you can have a copy of Disk Management on the screen,
while reviewing the Command Prompt session I show in the example.
The Command Prompt must be run from an Administrators group
account (not a Limited User), as this involves disk I/O operations.
On some OSes, the main account belongs to the administrator group.

That will work on WinXP..Windows10, at the very least.
I haven't tried that on Win2K. I don't run Win98 or Win2K
often enough to remember, and I don't have licensed Vista here either.

*******

DBAN is fine. You'll need to be wearing your
clue hat, and for that reason, it won't appeal
to that many people. I thought that was a *just amazing*
project, because of their ability to get so many I/O
drivers into a bootable image, on such a small piece of
media. Later versions started to bulge a bit. I think at
one time, it fit on a floppy.

My favorite entries from the DBAN forum were the ones that go:

"I just used DBAN and it erased my backup drive, which
was still connected to the computer. Now, can you help
me recover that data ????"

Such a sad panda... Just sad.

Because *of course*, that data is *never coming back*.

Have a six-pack of "Picard FacePalm" handy if using DBAN. "Doh!"
And by all means, leave that backup drive plugged in, so
it gets smacked too.

*******

The CMRR Secure Erase was a little too hard to run, a bit
on the scary side when you use it the first time. Some SSD
tool kits may offer to run it, but then the storage port
on the computer might not allow it (security feature).
I think the Corsair Neutron Toolkit, the command to
Secure Erase there, actually worked, and with a minimum
amount of fuss. I then thought other Toolkits could do it,
but as it turns out, only the Neutron kit worked. The
big name brands, did not!!!

On modern drives, on DBAN, one pass is sufficient.
A pass of zeros is good enough.

The Diskpart command "Clean" is one pass of zeros.

*******

And you don't really need us to give you an iron
clad guarantee on these. Using Virtual Machine software,
you can set up temporary installs of whatever you want,
and practice "erasing a sacrificial drive" in a virtual
environment. I could test a DBAN CD for example, using
VirtualBox, and then I could discover the weaknesses,
whatever they are, with *no* danger to my real hard drive.
Since the virtual hosting programs have things such as
"video record mode", you can even make a tutorial of
the screen, and send your friend a video file by email,
showing how to do it.

So let's take a picture.

https://dban.org/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dba...6.iso/download

https://cfhcable.dl.sourceforge.net/...2.3.0_i586.iso

dban-2.3.0_i586.iso 16,719,872 bytes

SHA1: 9C83EFEDC998B3334D48B8754A86475DE9328BF8

Here are some pictures. Use "download original image".

https://i.postimg.cc/HnCJKQSX/dban-session.gif

And the forum has the usual kinds of comments.

https://sourceforge.net/p/dban/discu...read/6bc10266/

Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Tue, 11 Jun 2019 15:46:58 -0500, "M. L."
wrote:

I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows 10
computer for wiping?

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer and
friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe methods
will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a discussion of
military wipe options that take a long time. A simple disk format will
suffice. Thanks.

By quick are you referring to the time your newbie friend would have to
spend, or the time the computer would have to run after he did his part?

On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 15:46:58 -0500, M. L. wrote:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO

I'm even more confused than the others since I only skimmed the OP's
question, which was confusing, but my first thought is to boot to _any_
operating system on an optical drive or flash drive, and then do the
quickest format that exists.

Isn't there a 'quick format' in Windows, for example?

* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

I have no doubt that the best freeware I've ever used for burning optical
media is ImgBurn.
http://imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Certainly _plenty_ of others exist, where ImgBurn is sort of like IrfanView
in that it's the reliable quick simplest fastest "standard" on Windows.

By quick are you referring to the time your newbie friend would have to
spend, or the time the computer would have to run after he did his part?

I'm interested in a short computer completion time

I swear I once wiped a Windows drive with a floppy disk program and a
command line, and it took only a matter of seconds. But I can't think of
the name now for anything.

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO

I'm even more confused than the others since I only skimmed the OP's
question, which was confusing, but my first thought is to boot to _any_
operating system on an optical drive or flash drive, and then do the
quickest format that exists.

Isn't there a 'quick format' in Windows, for example?

Can't wipe a drive that's running the OS.

* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

I have no doubt that the best freeware I've ever used for burning optical
media is ImgBurn.
http://imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Certainly _plenty_ of others exist, where ImgBurn is sort of like IrfanView
in that it's the reliable quick simplest fastest "standard" on Windows.

I like ImgBurn but I think its interface is too convoluted for the
person I'll be helping.

Anyway, I just found a Macrium WinPE 4.0 boot DVD in my stash that
should allow us to format the HDD. At worst, I'll mail her a copy of the
DVD and let her boot it. WinPE is user-friendly for a Windows newbie so
I might be able to walk her through the formatting task. However, I
think she's now leaning toward bringing her computer to me to handle the
wiping. Thanks for your replies.

I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

Use the "secure SATA erase" feature.

tbh, I'm not sure that the drive is SATA. It could be IDE. I just
discovered a Macrium WinPE 4.0 boot DVD that I had stored away. So it
might be best to convince her to bring the computer to my house for the
wipe task. Shouldn't take long to format the drive with WinPE.

I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older
legacy computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics.
I'm only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows
10 computer for wiping?

What kind of connection? Adding a network computer is beyond her skill
level. And so is removing the HDD.

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer
and friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe
methods will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a
discussion of military wipe options that take a long time. A simple
disk format will suffice. Thanks.

CCleaner is free and has a drive wiper.

It's not possible for CCleaner to wipe the HDD that it's installed on. I
was leaning more towards a boot disk solution.

On 6/11/2019 5:38 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 6/11/2019 4:46 PM, M. L. wrote:
I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older
legacy computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics.
I'm only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows
10 computer for wiping?

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer
and friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe
methods will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a
discussion of military wipe options that take a long time. A simple
disk format will suffice. Thanks.

I think to adequately do what you want, we should know for what purpose
the disk is being wiped.

I deliberately avoided giving more info than necessary to discourage
this type of discussion from going where it usually goes... which is
toward convoluted high-security wipe methods. Don't need them.

If it is being wiped with the idea of reinstalling the OS to get a "new"
computer that is one thing.

IF the disk is to be used as a back up disk that is some thing else.

If the disk is to be used as a back up disk the easiest way to wipe it
without security concerns is to connect the disk to the computer, and
reformat the disk using the OS Reformat on he host computer.

The only fate that matters is that the HDD won't face any post-operative
forensics. We just want it wiped to prepare it for its next unknown OS.

I have done this when a computer fails.Â* I first get the data from the
disk by putting it in a USB enclosure and take off the data I want.Â* A
couple weeks later after I sure I have every thing of value, I then
reformat it and set it up with the folders I want on a backup disk.

Moving the HDD is not an option. Thanks for your suggestions though.

On 6/11/2019 5:41 PM, Paul wrote:
M. L. wrote:
I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older
legacy computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics.
I'm only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

I'd like recommendations for the following:

* user-friendly bootable HDD wipe program ISO
* user-friendly portable Windows 10 ISO burner program

Is there a way she could connect the computer to her current Windows
10 computer for wiping?

I don't find DBAN to be user friendly and am hoping there are newer
and friendlier options with a GUI for wiping. Any other easy wipe
methods will be appreciated, but please do not digress into a
discussion of military wipe options that take a long time. A simple
disk format will suffice. Thanks.

It helps a lot if we know the (operational) OS on the machine.

Also, do you want to keep the OS drive and just erase
a data drive, or are you erasing the entire machine
so it can be donated to the recycler company ?

Â*Â* diskpart

Â*Â* list disk

Â*Â* select disk 2

Â*Â* list partitionÂ*Â* === good if you want to verify which partitions are
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* about to be deleted.

Â*Â* clean allÂ*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* === this will erase the *entire* disk 2, every byte
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* will be zeroed. This could easily take hours
to do!

Â*Â* cleanÂ*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* === this only erases the MBR and partition table,
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* giving the "appearance" of clean. But TestDisk
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* could recover the disk if you do this. This
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* takes about a microsecond to complete.

Â*Â* exit

The disks are in the same order as Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).
Thus, you can have a copy of Disk Management on the screen,
while reviewing the Command Prompt session I show in the example.
The Command Prompt must be run from an Administrators group
account (not a Limited User), as this involves disk I/O operations.
On some OSes, the main account belongs to the administrator group.

That will work on WinXP..Windows10, at the very least.
I haven't tried that on Win2K. I don't run Win98 or Win2K
often enough to remember, and I don't have licensed Vista here either.

*******

DBAN is fine. You'll need to be wearing your
clue hat, and for that reason, it won't appeal
to that many people. I thought that was a *just amazing*
project, because of their ability to get so many I/O
drivers into a bootable image, on such a small piece of
media. Later versions started to bulge a bit. I think at
one time, it fit on a floppy.

My favorite entries from the DBAN forum were the ones that go:

Â*Â* "I just used DBAN and it erased my backup drive, which
Â*Â*Â* was still connected to the computer. Now, can you help
Â*Â*Â* me recover that data ????"

Such a sad panda... Just sad.

Because *of course*, that data is *never coming back*.

Have a six-pack of "Picard FacePalm" handy if using DBAN. "Doh!"
And by all means, leave that backup drive plugged in, so
it gets smacked too.

*******

The CMRR Secure Erase was a little too hard to run, a bit
on the scary side when you use it the first time. Some SSD
tool kits may offer to run it, but then the storage port
on the computer might not allow it (security feature).
I think the Corsair Neutron Toolkit, the command to
Secure Erase there, actually worked, and with a minimum
amount of fuss. I then thought other Toolkits could do it,
but as it turns out, only the Neutron kit worked. The
big name brands, did not!!!

On modern drives, on DBAN, one pass is sufficient.
A pass of zeros is good enough.

The Diskpart command "Clean" is one pass of zeros.

*******

And you don't really need us to give you an iron
clad guarantee on these. Using Virtual Machine software,
you can set up temporary installs of whatever you want,
and practice "erasing a sacrificial drive" in a virtual
environment. I could test a DBAN CD for example, using
VirtualBox, and then I could discover the weaknesses,
whatever they are, with *no* danger to my real hard drive.
Since the virtual hosting programs have things such as
"video record mode", you can even make a tutorial of
the screen, and send your friend a video file by email,
showing how to do it.

So let's take a picture.

https://dban.org/


https://sourceforge.net/projects/dba...6.iso/download


https://cfhcable.dl.sourceforge.net/...2.3.0_i586.iso


Â*Â* dban-2.3.0_i586.isoÂ*Â* 16,719,872 bytes

Â*Â* SHA1: 9C83EFEDC998B3334D48B8754A86475DE9328BF8

Here are some pictures. Use "download original image".

Â*Â* https://i.postimg.cc/HnCJKQSX/dban-session.gif

And the forum has the usual kinds of comments.

Â*Â* https://sourceforge.net/p/dban/discu...read/6bc10266/

Â* Paul

Thanks for your suggestions but none of them are newbie-friendly. I
found a Macrium WinPE 4.0 boot DVD so I'll be using that to format the
HDD. But that will only be done if I can convince the person to bring
the computer to me.

M. L. wrote:

I want to assist a newbie with wiping the hard drive of an older legacy
computer (model unknown for now), but I want to relay all the
instructions over the phone. Security is of no importance at all. The
computer will not be re-used by anyone interested in HDD forensics. I'm
only interested in speed and ease-of-use, not security.

Use the "secure SATA erase" feature.

tbh, I'm not sure that the drive is SATA. It could be IDE. I just
discovered a Macrium WinPE 4.0 boot DVD that I had stored away. So it
might be best to convince her to bring the computer to my house for the
wipe task. Shouldn't take long to format the drive with WinPE.


You can open a Command Prompt from there and
do the "diskpart" thing with the "clean all"
command. Once a disk is selected from
the disk list.

The Macrium disc has a Command Prompt icon on the lower
left (taskbar). Open that and do "diskpart".

I'm not certain Disk Management is there.
It would seem easier to work in Disk Management,
but the WinPE doesn't necessarily have everything
you could want.

Macrium has an "Explorer-like" icon on the taskbar
too, but it was written by Macrium as far as I know.
You could see some drive letters in there perhaps,
nothing really important.

Paul