Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Wiping USB flash drives with DBAN

This is so obvious I missed it completely.

To wipe a USB flash drive, the only option is to use the 'autonuke' function. However, using this function means that the hard drive is also wiped. You can't customize DBAN to only wipe the flash drive.

John Greth has an excellent write up about how to wipe the flash drive only. It involves running a virtual machine to simulate a boot up within the running OS.

I'm using a method that doesn't require running a virtual machine:

1. Disconnect the HDD.
2. Attach the flash drive you're wiping.
3. Boot up with the DBAN CD.
4. Select 'autonuke' and DBAN will detect only the the flash drive.
5. Power down system after wipe and re-connect the HDD.

It's so obvious I missed it...

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