I haven’t used DBAN but I have used Eraser to erase individual files and folders. I’ve never needed to wipe a complete disc, but I can see why that might be advantageous. Eraser works inside windows. Once installed, you can right click on an individual file, files or folder (such as the entire My Documents folder) and select erase from the pull-down. The level of Data Sanitization is up to you. I set it up to a simple three pass method (DoD 5220.22), but that can be changed to Gutmann or one of many other protocols, and allows you to erase a file and replace it for “plausible deniability” (whatever that means). I’m not concerned with NSA or the FBI going after my files, so something that is gone from a casual inspection is good enough. A single pass of 0’s, 1’s or pseudorandom 1’s & 0’s would probably be plenty for most needs. More passes takes more time.
Quote:
From Heidi Computers:
Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows that allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Guttmann's paper Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory and are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.

Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the U.S. Department of Defense, and overwriting with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.


Were I to wipe a drive, I would use the DoD 5220.22 protocol for individual files that I really wanted gone, and then I’d reformat which as I understand uses a single pass of 0’s (as in “Write Zero”).

As stated, I’m a user, not a developer and it’s free.