DBAN is designed to do one thing and one thing only. Entirely and securely erase any drives it can find.

DBAN is designed to do one thing and one thing only. Entirely and securely erase any drives it can find. You burn the program to a CD or DVD and boot from it. Hopefully, the description on this one is clear if you’re thinking about downloading this. The objective here is a free utility that can wipe out everything securely from all attached drives, primarily if you’re getting rid of a hard drive or computer. This way, the data on your drive can not be recovered. There is no guarantee and some limitations that you are warned about, like no support, no raid dismantling, and of course, no guarantee that it will work. Oh, don’t leave any drives (like thumb drives) attached because they will be wiped. This program isn’t designed to be your friend; it will erase any attached drives. That said, it works, and it works well. The warnings are in place because this is free software. The developer now offers a wiping service and a professional version with no price listed, which usually means it’s expensive.

DBAN automatically deletes the contents of any hard disk that it can detect. This method can help prevent identity theft before recycling a computer. DBAN is also a commonly used solution to remove viruses and spyware from Microsoft Windows installations.

However, DBAN users should be aware of some product limitations, including:

No guarantee of data removal (e.g., DBAN does not detect or securely erase SSDs)

No audit-ready reporting for regulatory compliance

Limited hardware support (e.g., no RAID dismantling)

No customer support or regular software updates