Dban multiple disk?

[Gary Davis]

I am trying to set up a DBAN station to wipe multiple disk at the same time.  I thought that if I put two Adaptec Ultra 100 PCI IDE controller cards in the computer that I would be able to wipe 8 disk at once, but it only sees the disk on master IDE 1.  I only have a CD hooked to the onboard IDE connection (no hd or os), so that I can boot DBAN from the CD.  I’m thinking that it wants the drivers for the additional controllers, but since it is a DBAN disk, there is no way to add the drivers.

 

Has anyone set up an environment similar to what I am try to do?  Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

Gary D

Tellico Village Computer Users Club

[Terry Scott]

I use DBAN on a bootable flash drive, which then frees up the 4 onboard IDE connections.  I haven't tried 8, but it should work.  Do the secondary drives show up in the BIOS?  

-Terry Scott

Modesto, CA

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Terry Scott

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[Pat Furr]

We set up a cd tower to wipe drives using Blancco but it also works for D-Ban.  I believe you can wipe at least 12 at a time.

We installed RAID 0 or Raid 1 controller cards (PCI).  By using Raid 0 or 1, we did not show all hard drives as one drive but could see each individual drive.  As I recall using the IDE drives we did have to take care to set the jumpers as master/slave or both at cable select.

 

The problems you will encounter is having a power supply large enough to handle multiple drives.  You can also run into a problem of the amount of heat generated during the wiping process.  I am working on a newer wiping process using Blancco and networked computer to a simple server.  I have also found that by wiping using SATA controllers rather than IDE, the process goes much more quickly.  We are using a KVM switch for 8 computers on one table wiping 32 drives at a time without heat issues.  It is definitely possible to wipe at least 8 computers at a time with d-ban.

 

Pat Furr

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[neumarke]

The problem I've found with using DBAN software to erase multiple
disks is that if one drive fails to erase completely, due to bad areas
of the drive, it isn't possible to tell which drive failed.

I have used the live Parted Magic Linux CD to wipe multiple drives at
one time. It can also boot from USB, which can free up IDE or SATA
ports. It also supports Secure Erase, which if you can get it working,
is the fastest erase method available.
http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

-Greg

[Ray Rawlins]

Hi Gary,

We stopped using DBAN because it took too long to wipe drives. Take a look
at this http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

What used to take 2 hours for an 80gb hard drive takes about 20 minutes
using secure erase.

Ray Rawlins
Computers2SDKids.org

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From: refurb...@googlegroups.com [mailto:refurb...@googlegroups.com]

-Greg

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[Ryan McDowell]

DBAN includes a limited set of drivers for common harddisk
controllers. Most likely the cards you are using are not included in
your version of DBAN. I personally have set up a station that did 12
harddrives at a time using supported cards but if one drive is bad it
can cause issues.

Smart testing drives before wiping is a must to ensure success. If you
need a wider support of hardware with DBAN you can use NWIPE with your
favorite linux live CD. NWIPE is the core function of DBAN separated
out to be used with whatever linux you like.

Firmware or internal wipe method is ideal but some drives (Western
Digital) does not support it in many models. Another issue is that
most major brand computers "freeze lock" security features for
harddrives on boot to prevent triggering these features by the OS. All
of these items must be considered before using the drives internal
wiping method.

Ryan Mc.