It's called Darik's Boot and Nuke. Okay, maybe some (or all) of you have heard of it, but I just found out about it.

You load it onto a boot disk, boot from it, and it overwrites your data I believe 35 times (in accordance with Peter Guttmann's research. As in, your hard drive is bare and the data is non-recoverable. It's nuked.

Okay, I can see some uses that support illegal activity or are tampering with evidence (clearing your computer if you're a pedo, cracker, or are being sued by the RIAA or some such). However, you can have all sorts of fun. Like telling my brother that if he starts snooping on my computer one more time my hand may just accidentally knock the disk into his floppy drive, brush the power button, and hit a key when it asks if it should boot from floppy... (it ain't the content, it's the principle of the thing. Okay, and the content)

There have been a bunch of programs like that. I used to have one called "Kill Disk" that we used in the field. We were suppose to use it on customer's hard drives if they requested it. I used to keep a disk taped to the bottom of my desk when I had been into the old BBS scene and ran a site with someone. Never knew who'd be knocking at my door. =)

-d

OK, so quetion is, does it REALLY format the HDD that many times?

Quoted: OK, so quetion is, does it REALLY format the HDD that many times?

It does not format, it overwrites.

I have used DBAN before when sending back hard drives for warranty coverage.  No way I'm sending my info to them, they can and will remanufacture the drive and sell it as a factory refurbished drive.  Since they would not commit to "Full wiping" on return, I do it myself.

jim

Quoted: Quoted: OK, so quetion is, does it REALLY format the HDD that many times? It does not format, it overwrites. I have used DBAN before when sending back hard drives for warranty coverage.  No way I'm sending my info to them, they can and will remanufacture the drive and sell it as a factory refurbished drive.  Since they would not commit to "Full wiping" on return, I do it myself. jim

How long does it take?

Probably not as long as a linux format and then a debug.