It's finally that time. I purchased new several years back a Dell XPS 8500 desktop along with a 24" UHD monitor. I was going to specifically use it for photo editing. Health issues intervened and I never used it but a few hours. So the wife and are a going to have a yard sale to move a lot of unwanted "stuff" thats just gathering dust.

I'd like to find and purchase a CD or disk that I can insert into the stand alone desktop that upon booting will do it's thing to erase pertinent personal info and allow it to be sold safely. I don't have much energy for hooking it back to the monitor or any other connections except the power supply. Can any of you good folks point me to this CD/disk that will work without a monitor and/or mouse for navigation? Thank you kindly.

Why not just remove the harddrive?

Unless the pc is setup to boot from the CD drive (unlikely) you would need to go into the bios and change the boot order or force a one time boot from cd. Unfortunately this would require setting up the monitor to see what you are doing.

So in other words I don't think you can do what you want without a monitor hooked up

If you can attach the monitor look for dban as it erases reliably

There are, of course, programs you can run off disk or USB that will erase the hard drive. I don't know of any that will run without human input.

You might find someone who will connect the monitor, keyboard, and mouse for you. I'd offer, but it's a bit of a drive.

Alternatively, you might take the hard drive (and optionally the computer) to someone and have them "wipe it with a cloth or something" for you.

hook stuff up or I'd simply pull the drive as suggested above.

What you are looking for is DBAN (Derik's Boot and Nuke).

Free download. You put it on a USB stick. Set the computer to boot from USB in the BIOS (takes just a moment). Boot from the USB Nuke stick. Authorize destruction like 2 or 3 times. And let the computer run for several hours.

DBAN will securely wipe the drive by writing over the disk sectors with random 1's and 0's over and over. The DOD suggests 5 passes I believe. Or maybe just 3.

It's so simple, I was able to instruct the front desk girl on how to do it, and she ran it concurrently on 10 computers at a time in an Arthur Anderson style rush to wipe hundreds of employee computers.

You will need a screen and keyboard though.

Thank you for the replies. Unfortunately since I've lost total control of my left side to include arm and hand, and no balance at all due to a stroke much of everyday normal functions are so limited. Even walking as of late is unfortunately so limited, I hate to admit these kind of things, it's just something that I have to live with.

So, the easiest path for me is the likeliest way. It really s**ks and hard to admit, but I'm not doing as well as I could.

I just try and make tasks as simple as possible and device work-arounds that are more difficult.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
What you are looking for is DBAN (Derik's Boot and Nuke).

The DOD suggests 5 passes I believe. Or maybe just 3.

I would second dban.org from Aeteocles.

DoD - 3 passes overwriting the hard disk drive.
DoD no longer specifices this, yet is still the standard for sanitization of a hard drive ...

NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology) Sp (Special Publication) 800-88 is another standard.

SSD (Solid state drives) are difficult and require different techniques.

Damn, I'm praying for you! My doctor is saying I'm in for the same stuff possibly, sure hope not! Do your best brother!!

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
What you are looking for is DBAN (Derik's Boot and Nuke).

Free download. You put it on a USB stick. Set the computer to boot from USB in the BIOS (takes just a moment). Boot from the USB Nuke stick. Authorize destruction like 2 or 3 times. And let the computer run for several hours.

DBAN will securely wipe the drive by writing over the disk sectors with random 1's and 0's over and over. The DOD suggests 5 passes I believe. Or maybe just 3.

It's so simple, I was able to instruct the front desk girl on how to do it, and she ran it concurrently on 10 computers at a time in an Arthur Anderson style rush to wipe hundreds of employee computers.

You will need a screen and keyboard though.

Sorry when I was typing out my previous reply I was interrupted and didn't finish my reply. I appreciate your reply immensely Aeteosles and follow up cjevans. As it's difficult to imagine that even some of the simplest tasks are difficult, the monitor isn't even hooked up so I would guess that to be able to use a boot command I'd need to hook up at least the monitor and keyboard/mouse? I was really hoping for a CD or some disk for the DVD drive that I could just insert the CD/disk and it would automatically start running the program when disk is inserted. I know how lame or lazy this sounds but honestly this is how my life is today. I'm certainly not looking for any sympathies as there are many other folks that have their health burdens to bare.

I'm just trying to be proactive now so it doesn't become a burden on my wife should things deteriorate further. I haven't shot my handguns in over 10yrs and very soon the Wilson, Nighthawk, and Colt Python need to find a home but due to my health stuff, it's likely that somebody will have to come to my home and purchase them because of my mobility restrictions. They are pristine. I will soon be addressing those and other stuff laying about gathering dust but I'm just beginning to part ways with things.

So currently, I was just hoping to find a simple kind of solution to be able to move my Dell computer and monitor. It's way to hard to just throw the stuff out as it's mint and hardly used, as most of mine things are. I was just caught off guard with this brain event and recent heart attack that at anytime things could further go south leaving the burden on the wife to handle.

Sorry for the long winded BS, it's the last thing I want to do to bring my problems out. I just need some friendly advice and prayer if you're so inclined..

I'd add, this is being typed on my MacBook as the Dell XPS is on another desk sitting unplugged along with the monitor.

Damn indeed. Sorry to hear about the stroke. Nasty bit of ugliness, it sounds like. You're in my prayers.

Oh, and yeah, DBAN is probably the closest thing to what you are looking for. There has to be some of us that live near you that could help.

If your wife could send me the drive, I would DBAN' it for you, and send it back to you wiped. I wish I lived closer to you.

H&K-Guy

just1tym, I had a stroke 6+ years ago in my left brain. I lost all control of my right hand and arm, and some leg use and balance. With therapy and time, I gained maybe 1/3 of my arm and hand use back (mostly within the first year or so).

I hear you and know of what you speak. I wish you well.

Here's to my cute PT, who nearly had an orgasm in her excitement over seeing me move my finger a fraction of an inch, and to my cute OT, who held me up by my Wilderness Instructor's Belt when I stumbled through the parallel bars.

If you truly want to repurpose the machine then just reformat and yes there are plenty of programs to do this at a deep level then reinstall the OS.
However, if you really have deep secrets or top secret information then just destroy the drives and let whoever reinstall the software.
You have to have put in a LOT of effort and have a HIGH level of experience to retrieve the data and you have to ask is it the remaining data actually worth someone doing this and is the data actually that important?

If you have a grandson or neighbor kid over age of 14 I bet they'd be happy too hook up monitor and run DBAN for you for a $20. Or even an adult neighbor, most of us would if we were there!

"Bleach Bit" rings a bell.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
If you have a grandson or neighbor kid over age of 14 I bet they'd be happy too hook up monitor and run DBAN for you for a $20. Or even an adult neighbor, most of us would if we were there!

Yep. It's extremely simple, but there's no way around needing a keyboard and monitor to use DBAN.

(And a mouse and a USB thumb drive, if you're having to start from scratch by downloading DBAN and creating your own bootable thumb drive yourself.)


The best you can do without any means of hooking up a keyboard and monitor is to physically remove the hard drive and try to sell the rest of the computer for parts. But that probably won't get you much money, since it wouldn't be a complete working computer and there's not much money in several-year-old basic consumer computer components as parts.

And you'd still need someone to help you with removing the hard drive anyway.


Unfortunately, there's no super-simple "insert a disc and push the power button and you're done" kind of solution.

I would be happy to help you if you're
within a reasonable distance to me.
Let me know.
Regards, Jack

Yeah, that's a tough spot to be in. Sorry you have to go through it.

If it's at all helpful, I could put DBAN on a small USB stick and mail it. A neighbor (or wife) would need only to plug in the monitor and keyboard, Press F1 at startup, move USB drive to the top of the boot order, restart the computer and then type "autonuke" and press enter.

Selling or disposing of the computer in this sanitized state should be plenty. Anyone buying it can reinstall the OS directly from Dell.

And thanks so much for your replies. I kinda feel almost lame asking for help because of my condition, it's difficult because I've always been so self sufficient and never expected to be in this situation this late in my life, the brain aneurysm came out of the blue and subsequent stroke during surgery has turned my life upside down. I just do the best I can but certain things I can't get passed and now require help, something I'm not used to asking.

You just have to know that I'm overwhelmed of the generosity here and it's one if not the only place I feel comfortable asking for help.

Aeteocles, I'm going to go with your suggestion, thank you. I'll be hooking up the computer, keyboard, and monitor and going with the usb stick per instructions. Thank you for your kind offer for the usb but I think I have one around here and I can download the stick using my MacBook.

Thank you also Jack, I'm pretty far down south located near the Homestead AFB, and it's a lengthy drive, but a heart felt thanks.

As this Dell was a Special Edition it's very nice and I had planned solely on using it to edit and store photos, after I had my surgery I lost the ability to use my dslr and all the gear so I sold everything off except the Gitzo tripod and Markins ball head, both those need to go also. The Dell XPS 8500 SE and the Dell UltraSharp U2410 monitor is a great combo for any enthusiast.


Thanks again and when I'm ready soon with para's permission I'll be posting my Wilson Classic Supergrade and Nighthawk Dominator and 76" Nickle Python in the classifieds. Both 1911's were custom ordered and built to my spec's They are extremely mint, both 1911's have less than 100 or so rounds fired before my stroke deficits shut me down from range time. It's almost certain that some member here in Florida may make the drive to my house to purchase them as I really don't even have the capacity or endurance to go to a facility to ship..Yea it kinda s**ks but I'm trying to make the best of my time and helping my wife get things sorted out.

Thanks again all and God Bless.

Not sure if you are aware, but there's one additional step of getting software to boot from a USB. You can't just download a software package and just "place" it into the USB drive. You have to use a program that takes the "ISO" file that you download and program it onto the USB (much like you would "burn" a software image onto a CD).

In this case, DBAN comes as downloaded as an ISO file.

Luckily, your Mac has a built in utility for "burning" ISO onto a USB stick. You can Google for instructions on how to use your Mac's "Disk Utility" to burn an image onto a USB. I no longer own Mac, so I can't guide you through it.

From there, you can boot from the USB to Nuke your drives.