Geek Software of the Week: DBAN
Have you ever sold or donated a PC to someone else? Have you considered that even if you “delete” your private data, it is still recoverable? So, your data COULD be retrieved and used to get into your bank account, etc.! You need a way to totally ZAP your data! Well, here you go!
“Darik’s Boot and Nuke (‘DBAN’) is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.”
DBAN comes in a floppy and CD-ROM version. And, of course, it is totally FREE!
PLEASE NOTE: As Darkmoon points out in a comment to this post, there is NO “CONFIRM” option, once you choose to wipe your drive with DBAN, it will just WIPE IT! And, there is no return from this! Your data will be GONE! You have been warned! Don’t come crying to the Doctor! [Grin!]
By the way, if you are looking for a utility to simply delete files securely, WITHOUT wiping the hard drive, check out simple File Shredder available here:
Be very careful of this one. I didn’t post it on LUX because of it. Last look, it never did a confirmation. It wipes right off. Could be extremely dangerous if not labeled correctly.
Good point! I will make a note in the post.
I don’t want to wipe all the information off my computer, but I have wondered if there are any tools that would overwrite or otherwise make deleted information truley unreadable.
If you are looking for a way to delete files securely without wiping your whole drive, check out “Simple File Shredder”, available free from here:
http://www.scar5.com/
Eraser. It’s actually associated with DBAN also. Used it for a couple years.
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/