Darik's Boot and Nuke - Use to Secure Wipe a Hard Drive

Darik's Boot and Nuke - Use to Wipe a Hard Drive

How to Securely Wipe a Hard Disk with "Darik's Boot and Nuke"​

   Information

This tutorial will show you how to use Darik's Boot and Nuke to help you secure wipe a hard drive that has data that you need to have destroyed.

   Warning

Before we start:

Darik's Boot and Nuke will irrecoverably erase all data on the hard drive. It will also erase any hard drive/ flash drive that is connected to your computer, so be sure to unplug drives that you don't want to have erased before you use Darik's Boot and Nuke. Also, Darik's Boot and Nuke will take several hours depending on the options you choose, so be sure you have time to do this.

Let's begin:

1. You need to download Darik's Boot and Nuke. It can be downloaded from here:

Download


2. You will need to burn the iso file to a cd. This tutorial will show you how to if ou don't know how: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/548-burn-disc-image-iso-img-file.html

3. Restart your computer, go into the BIOS and set it to boot from CD/DVD first.

4. Insert your Darik's Boot and Nuke CD so your computer can boot off of it.


5. Darik's Boot and Nuke will come up at a screen asking you what you want to do.

• F2 to learn more about Darik's Boot and Nuke
• F3 for a list of quick commands
• F4 for the disclaimer
• Enter to start Darik's Boot and Nuke in Interactive Mode
• You can type in autonuke to automatically erase your hard drive with the DoD Short method which is a 3 pass secure erase on your hard drive. I recommend that you choose autonuke.

6. Type in the option that you want and press enter. I am going to type in autonuke.

7. The process will take several hours depending on the size of your drive. Once it has completed, you can hold down the power button on your computer to shut your computer off.


I would like to thank Shawn for making some adjustments to this tutorial and helping me with this tutorial. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them below.

Related Tutorials

---

• How to "Clean" or "Clean All" a Disk with the Diskpart Command
• How to Delete a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Overwrite Deleted Data using the "Cipher" Command in Windows

 

[mcleod55]

Yes it helps a lot. I didn't want to screw this up. I'll take your advice on the "clean all" command. Thanks for the help.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[Clairvaux]

I have just burned a DBAN disk, booted from it, explored the screens and stopped just short from wiping my disks.

1. Once in interactive mode, some of the commands were not working (such as M to change mode), while others were inverted (J and K = up and down, except it worked the other way round). Could this be because of my French AZERTY keyboard ? Is there a workaround ?

2. Once in interactive mode, I did not find any command to interrupt the process so as to not proceed with wiping, so I just took the CD off, pressed the ON/OFF switch until shutdown, switched off the power supply (overkill probably), then booted up again into Windows. Is that correct ? Did I miss something ?

3. Is anyone aware of the time it takes to wipe a disk with the non-default methods, for instance DOD 5220.22-M ?

Thank you !