More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB

More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - Printable Version

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More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - TheDead - 02-19-2020

Hi,
I have quite a few computers I received recently but need to securely wipe the hard drives before installing linux on them.It's been two days trying to download the DBAN ISO and put on USB keys (3 different models).
Etcher and unetbootin say the downloaded (re-downloaded, etc.) ISO is not bootable and another program says nothing when creating the USB key but wont boot either.

All USB keys say that indeed, the computer has No Operating system found when (remove the harddrive to test since otherwise, it boots the old OS).
PS : Computers are not UEFI and are quite "Legacy" since the CPU is not even 64bits (old Core Duo) Wink

Any hints to get DBan working/booting?

Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - Valtam - 02-19-2020

Tried dd?

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Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - TheDead - 02-20-2020

Quick post before work...
Never used dd so quite a noob there.
Is that terminal only? I usually get the GUI stuff Wink

Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - Valtam - 02-20-2020

Yes, no GUI. Let thy Google do thy bidding.

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Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - Moltke - 02-20-2020

(02-20-2020, 01:04 PM)TheDead link Wrote: Quick post before work...
Never used dd so quite a noob there.
Is that terminal only? I usually get the GUI stuff

Yes, dd is cli/terminal only, however, gparted uses it as well so I think you could burn LL iso, boot into live, then open gparted and wipe the HDD, for that select create new partition and then click apply, next right-click the new partition and select format and assign the format you want/need to the drive.

Hope this helps! Smile

Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - az2020 - 02-20-2020

Sometimes I use the dd command to "burn" USB flash drives. From my notes:

Format:
Find the device
df -h

Make sure it's UNMOUNTED
sudo umount /dev/sdxn

Format using ONE of the following
sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdxn
sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdxn
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdxn

[note: xn comes from the df command. Typically b1 or c1.]

Burn:
Find the device (again, a different way, just showing off now...)
fdisk -l

umount /dev/sdx

dd bs=4M if=linux-lite-4.8-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdx bs=4M

Test:
qemu-system-x86_64 -hda /dev/sdx

[note: I'm not consistent in including "sudo" to my notes when it's required. You'll probably encounter "not authorized" (or something) and need to add "sudo" to some of those commands. (You can also do "sudo -s" to keep the session sudo'ed. But, that's a risk of doing something unintended. But, so is up-arrowing through your command-line history and pressing enter on the wrong sudo prefixed command. Just, be careful.).]

Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - DeepThought - 02-20-2020

[member=11791]az2020[/member]

Quote:[note: I'm not consistent in including "sudo" to my notes when it's required. You'll probably encounter "not authorized" (or something) and need to add "sudo" to some of those commands

That can be annoying, done it myself plenty of times. To save time instead of typing the whole command again with sudo in front, just type

Code:
sudo !!

thats sudo space and 2 exclamation marks. This will add sudo to your previous command, ask for your password and execute.

A life saver when it's a long command lol. Smile

Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - TheDead - 02-21-2020

[member=7109]Moltke[/member]
Thanks, but I need to "secure wipe" the HDD's not just erase them, hence the DBAN need.

[member=11791]az2020[/member] and [member=7644]DeepThought[/member] and Jerry.
Thanks for the info, will be trying that this weekend and getz backz to youz here. Wink

Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - Moltke - 02-21-2020

(02-21-2020, 11:42 AM)TheDead link Wrote: [member=7109]Moltke[/member]
Thanks, but I need to "secure wipe" the HDD's not just erase them, hence the DBAN need.

[member=11791]az2020[/member] and [member=7644]DeepThought[/member] and Jerry.
Thanks for the info, will be trying that this weekend and getz backz to youz here.

[member=6733]TheDead[/member] I thought that might work but you're probably right. There's also this https://launchpad.net/gdiskdump

Quote:GUI for diskdump (dd). Harddrive clone and imaging tool.

You should be able to install it with

Code:
sudo apt-get install gdiskdump

can't try cause I'm not in LL/Ubuntu right now but you can first check with

Code:
apt policy gdiskdump

whether it is or not available.

Quote:Sometimes I use the dd command to "burn" USB flash drives. From my notes:

Format:
Find the device
df -h

While this works I think

Code:
lsblk

gives a cleaner output.

Quote:Test:
qemu-system-x86_64 -hda /dev/sdx

This is a nice tip Smile

I use qemu/Vbox quite often and never ocurred to me that for trying live USBs. Thanks for sharing!

Re: More of a pre installing question - DBAN Vs USB - DeepThought - 02-21-2020

[member=6733]TheDead[/member] You can wipe the hdd using dd

source: https://how-to.fandom.com/wiki/How_to_wipe_a_hard_drive_clean_in_Linux

Code:
sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Replace sdX with your hdd that you want to wipe, but make sure you correctly identify the drive as this will wipe all data.