Best/safest option to wipe a donated computer before installing LL 3.4

[JanetBiggar]

I have just been donated an older Toshiba laptop that the donor has not wiped.  I would like opinions on which is the safest erasure process (for the donor's information) that should be performed such that I can place it with a youth with little risk to the donor. 

Yes, I know backing the car up over the computer is a sure fire way to secure his data    However I'm not considering this as an option.

I would prefer to simply wipe and install LL from the bootable USB as this is far faster than using DBAN first.  I am certainly comfortable using DBAN first, after checking that LL 3.4 runs fine on this computer, should DBAN be deemed the best option.

[m654321]

This has come up before: see https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/other...n#msg36234

Or just delete partition(s) using gparted and then recreate partition(s). You can do this from a 'live environment', that is booting into LL from a USB stick or DVD and geting into gparted and accessing the drive(s) from there.

[JanetBiggar]

Thanks for replying with the link and suggestion.  i'm not really sure how I would shred/erase the old files and OS on this donated computer via the link...I believe I do understand the shred function once I have LL up and running on this computer.

However, your other suggestion about clearing the partitions - if I choose to "install LL" I believe it does state that the partitions are cleared.  Am I right and if so will this be sufficient?

[valtam]

+1 DBAN.

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[br1anstorm]

I was interested to read this thread as I'm in a similar position to the OP.  I have an old desktop (actually a castaway from an office where I used to work).  It still has WinXP installed, and assorted old folders/files.  I was originally going to delete all the documents, keep WinXP (as there are still one or two Windows programs that I use occasionally) and install LL or another distro as dual boot.

But WinXP is playing up - won't boot, hangs, won't shut down - and it seems clear there are some corrupted files/sectors on the hard disk.  I have run chkdsk in XP, which has helped a bit but not cured the problem....

So I plan to "wipe" the entire hard disk and do a clean install of Linux.  Simple, I suppose.  But it seems I have a choice of at least three ways of doing so: 

1) use GParted to delete all partitions, create new partition table, and set up and format new partitions.  I'm just not totally sure that this will sort out any bad sectors than may have been caused by WinXP in, for example, its MBR;

2) use DBAN to "wipe" everything.  I have never used DBAN before but I gather it is effective;

3) use the "dd" command in the terminal to delete/overwrite the entire disk contents.  I saw this suggested in another forum.  The suggested command was

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

I'd be interested in comments as to the pros and cons of each of these options.

[JanetBiggar]

Hi [member=142]br1anstorm[/member],
I did end up going with DBAN for the computer I posted about given Jerry's vote and my concern about security for the donor.

I will let the experts on the list answer your actual question, however here is a link to a great step by step (with pics) for DBAN.  I can tell you are far more knowledgeable than me in terms of your options, but DBAN for me has proven to be invaluable.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-erase-a-...an-2619148

Here was the original Lifewire link from which I then got the DBAN steps & link:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-wipe-a-h...ve-2624527

Hope these links help in some way.

[br1anstorm]

Thanks [member=7067]JanetBiggar[/member]  - those links are very useful.  I vaguely recall seeing those webpages at some stage in the past, but evidently failed to bookmark them (and have now done so!).  The step-by-step is a helpful guide.

I'll wait a short while to see if anyone offers views on the other options I mentioned.  But it seems to me that DBAN will do the job OK.

[torreydale]

How do you get the DBAN *.iso to be a bootable USB image?

[torreydale]

I had to use my Windows 7 VM and run Rufus to make the DBAN *.iso file bootable on a USB flash drive.  No success with dd, Unetbootin, Gnome Disks, or Etcher.

[trinidad]

Format the USB disk to a single fat32 MBR partition. Can even be unallocated as long as the partition is MBR. After that use Ubuntu disk writer to write the ISO to the USB disk. Must be MBR to be bootable. Forget about all the flags and other stuff. The disk writer sets them as long as the partition is MBR. Many Debian ISOs have full EFI support now, so if you write to a disk that is not MBR the ISO installer will be written as an EFI/GPT version and then won't boot on non-EFI OSs. You are planning to use LL and deleting Windows so you need MBR on the disk partition you write the ISO to and before you use it the Windows partition must be unmounted by the EFI boot system. Hold the left shift key down continuously until windows is completely shut down then boot the USB on the media channel from the one time boot menu. On some older EFI/BIOS you may need to set to the install OS BIOS setting. This opens the media channel allowing disk writing.

TC