[ddesrosi]

Hi and thanks for helping me.

I wanted to install a new OS on my laptop. Load DBAN, start well but stop fast and show this mesage :

DBAN finished. Press ENTER to save the log file.format
Saving log file to floppy disk... a floppy disk in DOS format was not found.
DBAN finished. Press ENTER to save the log file.format
Saving log file to floppy disk... a floppy disk in DOS format was not found.
DBAN finished. Press ENTER to save the log file.format
Saving log file to floppy disk... a floppy disk in DOS format was not found.
DBAN finished. Press ENTER to save the log file.format
Saving log file to floppy disk... a floppy disk in DOS format was not found.

etc...

I tried to boot from a bootable windows disk but it won't and still as soon I push the on button the same message appear.
I am worry coz I need it fast for my work.

Can you help me ?

Denis Desrosiers

 

[dasleyefox]

Do you have a floppy disk drive

 

[blah789]

Did you select the hard drive? If you pressed F10 without selecting a drive, it goes straight to the save log screen as above.
You have to select the hard drive (press space bar). You'll see [***] next to it.
To speed things up I recommend you also select quick wipe (press m for method, then arrows up, quick wipe, and press space bar) to do a single pass. And press v (for verify) and arrow up and space bar next to none. Then when you're ready press F10.
At the end it offers to save the log, but that's not mandatory. Just press the power button to turn the computer off. If you feel like saving a log, insert a floppy and press space bar as it said.

 

[ddesrosi]

Thanks for your help.

I can't as soon push my botton on, this message appears. And can't do nothing.

 

[blah789]

Well when you press space bar, do you see either wipe or *** in the brackets?
older versions had *** and newer versions have wipe. if the drive isn't selected at all, you'll see [ ]
http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=84360
in that example image, the scsi drive has been selected, but the ide drive has not

 

[ddesrosi]

Nothing happend when I press space bar.

 

[blah789]

what happens when you press m or v? can you press the arrow up or down keys and press space bar?

 

[ddesrosi]

m = Saving log file to floppy disk... a floppy disk in DOS format was not found.
DBAN finished. Press ENTER to save the log file.

v = ^

space + up or down or both = [[A

 

[blah789]

i'm baffled by your answer. what did you mean by
v = ^
and
space + up or down or both = [[A

and what country keyboard layout do you have?

 

[ddesrosi]

Those are sybols that appears when I type thoses letters.

Canadian.

 

[blah789]

the only other thing i can think of is your keyboard's not working while you're in dban. could happen if you have a usb keyboard. if that's the case, go into your BIOS (when the computer boots there should be a prompt "press such or such key to enter setup" - press it - it's usually Del or F1, F2, F10, F11, or something like that). Look for a setting that enables legacy USB support.

Canadian keyboards are mostly similar to US ones (save a few keys). There's 2 variants (canadian multilingual, canadian french), but the V and M keys should still be in the same location, and the arrow keys should work just fine too.

(just throwing out the obvious) When I said press arrow up or down, I mean these keys:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Arrow_keys.jpg

dban quick guide: (drafted in 10 minutes, using google images for screenshots)
When you boot from your floppy or CD and you start dban, you should see this screen
http://www.taosecurity.com/images/dban_4.png

the box next to the drive [ ] should be empty like in the screen.
to select the drive, you press the space bar. you should see either a [***] or [wipe] when you do that.
if you want to pick another drive (or a partition within a drive: they are indented), you use the arrow up and down key.

then you pick a method by pressing M. you should see this screen:
http://www.geekornerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/image-dban-methods.jpg
to move around the choices, you use the arrow up and down keys. to make a selection, you press space bar. when you've made your selection, it should take you back to the main screen and you should see your selection's changed (under method at the top) if you've changed it.
i recommend a quick wipe because it's a single pass with 0's and for all intents, it's all that's needed.

last you can pick whether to verify what you've written. you press V for that, and you should see this screen
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_f-VN9F37tV4/Sif50Gb75hI/AAAAAAAAAYM/eH1wc70a2Ao/s400/verify+passes.jpg
again, I don't recommend verify, because it's really not needed.

when you're back to the main menu and you're ready, make sure your drive is selected (it should have the **** or wipe in the box next to it), then press F10.
depending on the size of your drives this could take hours. when it's done, you should get a prompt to save things to a floppy (regardless of whether you have or not). just turn your computer off.

if you need the instructions in french, get back to the thread.