If any machine contains sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, bank records, budget information, student ID’s, etc., it is highly recommended that the hard drive be physically destroyed.

If your computer contains sensitive information, erase the drive, and on the Disposal of Computer Equipment (Clean Hard Drive) form, check the box that affirms that your computer contains sensitive information. The drive will be destroyed in the warehouse. If your computer is not functional, use the same form and check the box that affirms that the computer is not functional.

Using DBAN to Erase a Hard Drive

If the drive does not contain sensitive information, it is recommended that it still be erased before disposal.  You can use the DBAN program to erase a drive.  The DBAN program can be downloaded and then installed to an external USB storage device (flash drive).  The computer will then be booted up using the USB storage device.

• Download the DBAN installation program at www.dban.org/download to your C: drive.
• Insert a USB storage device.
• Double click the DBAN installation program
• Select the option for the USB storage device.
• Boot the computer using either the DBAN boot USB drive or CD.
  (For Dell computers: Turn on the computer, when the blue Dell logo appears, press F12 to get to the BIOS boot menu.  Highlight the "USB Storage Device" using the arrow keys and press enter.)
• The computer will boot into DBAN on the USB storage device.
• At the boot: prompt, type dod at the prompt and press ENTER. (This will do a DOD 7-pass level erase)
• The erasing process will begin.  Depending on the size of the hard drive this may take hours.  The DBAN screen will display a progress on the number of passes and the time remaining.
• When you see “DBAN succeeded,” remove the disk and power down.

USB Storage Device Boot Setup

These are the instructions to change the boot drive to a USB Storage Device for Dell computers:

When turning on the computer, when the blue Dell logo appears, press F12 to get to the BIOS boot menu.  If there is an option for "USB Storage Device", highlight it with the arrow keys and press enter. DBAN should boot.

If there is no "USB Storage Device" option, restart the computer and press F2 to enter the system BIOS when the blue Dell logo appears. Once you are in the BIOS utility, select "Boot Sequence" and press enter. In the window that appears, "USB Storage Device" should be present.  Highlight and press the space bar until a checkmark is present to the left of "USB Storage Device".  Press Escape to exit that window, then Escape again to exit the setup utility.  Select "Save Changes and Exit" and the computer will reboot.

Once the BIOS is changed, "USB Storage Device" should appear in the F12 boot menu and will boot DBAN.

If there are still problems booting, or for computers without diskette drives, there is a version of DBAN available to create on CDROM at http://dban.sourceforge.net/.