Wipe out hard drive on HP box using DBAN from CD?

Question

I need to create CD for wipping out hard drives before boxes are decomitioned. Considering to use DBAN:

does it matter that the boxes are running HP Unix? Will this effect anything?
is there a different version for different architecture?

I would assume that I create bootable CD (following whatever steps are recommended) then boot up on the relevant box from CD and wipe out the disk.

I'm asking because I was told that because the boxes are old HP with non-Intel/non-AMD architecture DBAN will not work.

This is customer requirement to be added to our installation/removal procedure for software that we provide for the box (excuse my ignorance, I'm trying to help system admin guy ...).

I know this is an ancient question but I saw HPUX and couldn't help myself. I just love HPUX. :) — egorgry, Jun 10 '11 at 16:38

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 09 '09 at 00:40

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DBAN is only available, to my knowledge, in an x86 format. If these machines aren't x86 architecture (like, HP PA RISC, for example) then you're not going to be able to boot DBAN on them. If they're PA RISC-based, for example, the code for DBAN won't execute on them.

Either pull the drives and attach them to an x86 PC, pull 'em and smash 'em with a sledgehammer, or perhaps someone w/ HP/UX experience will post about how you can boot off some media other than the hard disk drives themselves such that you can overwrite them using native tools.

(It's funny to think that, what w/ Apple machines being x86-based for the last couple of years, most people are starting to forget about living in a world with multiple processor architectures sitting around on desks. I miss the 21164, personally...)

answered Dec 09 '09 at 00:40

Evan Anderson

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+1, thanks, yes I suspect we're dealing with RISC or non x86 – stefanB Dec 09 '09 at 00:55
Does HPUX have a dd-like utility? (alternatively, would this be enough?) – Tom O'Connor Dec 09 '09 at 10:30
Linux and BSDs have LiveCDs around (for PA RISC) that you can boot and `dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hard_drives` – Chris S Oct 06 '10 at 13:51
HPUX has mediainit and dd. I posted an answer that may be helpful. – egorgry Jun 10 '11 at 16:30

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '10 at 19:02

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If you can find/make a Linux LiveCD that will boot on the server, you can use the shred utility to securely wipe the drives.

answered Feb 22 '10 at 19:02

bta

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 23 '10 at 00:22

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Pop the disks out and put them in a machine that's x86 :)

answered Feb 23 '10 at 00:22

Bill Weiss

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 10 '11 at 15:07

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The older version (1.0.7) of DBAN worked for me as well on an DL380 G6. You can download it here.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-1.0.7/dban-1.0.7_i386.iso/download

answered Jun 10 '11 at 15:07

adcmarti

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 06 '10 at 13:44

I have the same problem with an old DL380 (rack mounted). The problem is, it has a RAID controller built-in and neither DBAN or any Linux recognize the disks when connected to the RAID controller.

I was able to use DBAN on an old ML330 (tower) by plugging the disks to a SCSI card instead of the RAID card.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 07 '10 at 09:40

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Use the "old" DBAN 1.0.7 to wipe the HP Proliant disks. It seamed this version has the correct drivers for the array controller... the 2.x DBAN isn´t working here for me...

answered Dec 07 '10 at 09:40

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 10 '11 at 18:09

Sorry I don't have HPUX so this is all from memory. I know you already accepted an answer but I hope you find this useful regardless.

Get the device path of the devices from ioscan -fnC. Write in down.

Reboot with the hpux OS CD in the drive and interrupt the boot process. Type SEA to search for the devices. You should see the cdrom device from your ioscan. It should look like 0/3/0/0.0.1 or something and it will have a Px next to it where x is a number. Type BO Px or whatever it may be and answer no when it ask for the IPL stuff. There is a cmd called mediainit, so load that up and execute it against the disks from your ioscan.

./mediainit /dev/rdsk/cxtxdx

This will low level that little fella.

Wipe out hard drive on HP box using DBAN from CD?

7 Answers7