Move up and down the list with the J and K keys, and press the Space key to select/deselect the drive(s). Keeping it at 1 will run the method once, but should still be enough to erase everything securely.įinally, you must choose the drive(s) you want to erase.
We recommend choosing Verify Last Pass because it will keep verification on but won't require it to run after each pass, which would otherwise slow the whole process down.Ĭhoose how many times the chosen wipe method should run by opening the Rounds screen with the R key, entering a number, and pressing ENTER to save it. You're able to disable verification entirely, turn it on for the last pass only, or set it to verify the drive is empty after each pass has finished. V opens a set of three options you can choose from to define how often DBAN should verify that the drive is empty after running the chosen wipe method. DBAN recommends choosing DoD Short if you're not sure. See the previous step for more information on these options. Selecting the letter M lets you choose which wipe method you want to run. There are two options you can choose from-Mersenne Twister and ISAAC-but keeping the default one should be perfectly fine. Pressing the P key will open the PRNG (Pseudo Random Number Generator) settings. If you want to choose which hard drives to erase, as well as customize the wipe method, see the next step, which covers interactive mode. Type one of these commands into DBAN to start wiping all your hard drives with that specific data wipe method. You can use any of them that you think is necessary, but ones like gutmann are surely an overkill that will only take more time to complete. As an example, gutmann will overwrite the files with a random character, and do so up to 35 times, whereas quick will write a zero and only do it once.ĭBAN recommends using the dodshort command. Select the links next to the commands to read more about how they work. You can also use the autonuke command, which is the same thing as dodshort.
To have the flexibility to choose the hard drives you want to erase, how many times you want the files to be overwritten, and more specific options, press the ENTER key at this screen to open interactive mode.
The options you see there (as well as the autonuke one) are described in full detail in the next step.
As you can see, the F2 and F4 options are informational only, so you don't have to be concerned about reading through them unless you have a RAID system set up (which probably isn't the case for most of you.you would probably know if so).There are your options from the DBAN menu: Or, you can choose the hard drives you want to erase, as well as select exactly how you want them to be deleted. You can either enter a command at the bottom of the screen to immediately start erasing all the hard drives you have plugged into your computer, using a predefined set of instructions.