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Features

RUNNING Active@ ERASER for DOS

Modes of Operation

Active@ ERASER can be used three ways:

It is wise to label the floppy disk to identify the way you plan to use Active@ ERASER.

DOS Interactive Mode and Command Line Mode are similar in that you can control what happens after the utility has started. In Autoexecute Mode, however, Active@ ERASER will start immediately upon completion of the bootstrap startup (depending on the automatic settings).

DOS Interactive Mode

This section describes using the DOS Interactive screens. For “hands-off” operation, please see the next section, below.

Here are the steps for interactive operation:

With the PC power off, insert the Active@ ERASER floppy disk into drive A:.
Start the PC by turning on the power. The screen will display the Microsoft DOS prompt.
At the DOS prompt, run Active@ ERASER by typing:

HDERASER.EXE

The Detected Physical Devices screen appears as below:

Figure 3-1 Detected Physical Devices

All system hard drives and floppy drives will be displayed in the left pane along with their system information in the right pane.

Change the position cursor using the keyboard [Down] and [Up] arrow keys.

Information in the right pane will change according to the structure of the detected devices.

Hard drive devices are numbered by the system BIOS. A system with a single hard drive will show it as number 80h. Subsequent hard drive devices will be numbered consecutively. For example the second device will be shown as 81h.
Be certain that the drive you are pointing to is the one that you want to erase. All data will be permanently erased with no chance for recovery.

If there is any doubt about which drive to select, preview the sectors in the device by pressing [Ctrl + S]. The screen appears, as below:

Figure 3-2 Preview Sector

Scroll up and down using the keyboard arrow keys, [Page Up], [Page Down], [Home] and [End] navigation keys. Jump to a specific sector using [Ctrl + G]. When you are satisfied with the identification of the device, press [Esc] to exit this screen.

When you have selected the device to erase, move the cursor to that device and press [Enter] on the keyboard. The Configuration Screen appears.

Figure 3-3 Configuration Screen

Using the keyboard arrow keys, select the feature that you want to configure. Press [Enter] to make a change.

To assist with options presented in this screen, please refer to the Table 3-1.

Table 3-1 Erase Parameters Configuration

Feature	Default	Options
Erase Method	US DoD 5220.22M	One pass zeros One pass random US DoD 5220.22M German VSITR Russian GOST p-50739-95 Gutmann User Defined Number of Passes (For descriptions of these options see ANOTHER PLACE, below.)
Passes	3	If User Defined Number of Passes is selected in the line above, this number may be changed. Otherwise this line will display the standard number of passes for the selected erase method.
Verification	Enabled / 40%	Enabled: Utility inspects the work done by HDERASER to verify that the attempt was successful. The percentage shown indicates how much of the drive is verified. Disabled: Verification is not performed
Retry Attempts	5	If the process encounters an IO error, the number of times the operation will repeat before displaying an error message. Repeating the operation will sometimes help to overcome IO problems.
Ignore Errors	Disabled	Enabled: Each time the read heads encounter a read-write error, a message appears that requires confirmation by the user. Disabled: Error messages are not displayed.
Clear Log File before Start	Enabled
Skip Confirmation	Disabled	Next step confirmation screen does not appear.

The Confirm Action screen appears.

Figure 3-4 Confirm Action

This is the final step before removing data from the selected drive for ever. Once the process has started, you may stop it by pressing the [Esc] key.

Type ERASE-ALL-DATA and press [Enter]. Progress of the erasing procedure will be monitored in the Disk Erasing screen, similar to the one below:

Figure 3-5 Disk Erasing in Progress

If you wish to stop the process for any reason after it has begun, press the [Esc] key. Please note, however that erased data will not be recoverable. There is nothing more to do until the end of the disk erasing process. The application will operate on its own without user intervention.

If there are any errors, for example due to bad clusters, they will be reported on the Interactive screen. If such a message appears, it will be possible to cancel the operation (by pressing [Esc]), or continue erasing data.

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