Ultimate Boot CD

The reason I want to boot from a CD is to use Secure Erase on the hard disk. However, I'm unable to get the CD to boot first. The BIOS points to it as first option, I've reburned the CD at the slowest possible speed, the CD drive is confirmed as a master, but it's still being bypassed. (The computer is a Gateway Essential 512 MHz.)

Does anyone know about Secure Erase? If you do, then this is my question:

If WinXP is started in safe mode, and then the CD drive is accessed, can the hdderase utility be started successfully at that point? Or is a "real" boot a requirement?

Sorry if this seems off topic.

grendel25 wrote:The reason I want to boot from a CD is to use Secure Erase on the hard disk. However, I'm unable to get the CD to boot first. The BIOS points to it as first option, I've reburned the CD at the slowest possible speed, the CD drive is confirmed as a master, but it's still being bypassed. (The computer is a Gateway Essential 512 MHz.)

Does anyone know about Secure Erase? If you do, then this is my question:

If WinXP is started in safe mode, and then the CD drive is accessed, can the hdderase utility be started successfully at that point? Or is a "real" boot a requirement?

Sorry if this seems off topic.

you are better off using a flash drive to do it... if you want to do a hd erase you have to boot from a disk OTHER than the one you are wiping.

Damn, that just makes too much sense. Thanks....