I really don't think anything messed with the bios, they usually require some kind of specific driver or method to chat with the bios, usually relying on the vendor to create a linux binary, or at the bios level, to update the firmware.  I wish I could automagically update the bios, it's usually a pain.

You might consider booting the drive on a usb to sata adapter on a working system, or whatever format the disk is, to see if another os sees it even inserted.  Usually you'll get some sort of dmesg spew about this and that as it inserts and probes the hardware.  If linux/grub doesn't see it  at all, it's usually damaged.  Worst case you'll usually get /dev/sd[a|b|c] inserted message, which is linux understanding how to probe the hardware, and subsequent enumeration of your partitions if possible as /dev/sdX[1|2|3] as the partition.  A live cd should see some form of /dev/sdX drive aside from the usb.

If you see /dev/sdX without the number, and some grumbling about missing partitions, likely it wiped your data enough wipe from sector 0 at least as you let it run.

I'm thinking it isn't seeing your partition/mbr, etc, but probably sees /dev/sdX without at least /dev/sdX1 meaning you wiped your data.

Does the bios see it on the sata bus?  If so, the disk should be OK as long as you can rewrite the partition or access it without ata failures.

Only other thing is maybe a bug in the kernel not seeing a legacy adapter or something buggin' it out.  Maybe a different distro with an older kernel?  I have booted a newer kernel that didn't see old devices before for whatever malfeasance there was (usually stupid video card/driver issues tho, never a disk).

I did have crappy disk firmware update utility from linux nuke my Adata ssd with an upgrade binary to fix the disk from linux that was here today, gone tomorrow once invoked on my drive.  Their crack(head) tech support promply ignored me too, but again, requires some sort of binary interaction that is far from default on a disk utility to automagically update bios or firmware to a disk or mobo.  Dmesg just would give ugly kernel messages of sata timeouts beyond that -  to the garbage pile and blacklist of vendors to buy disks from.

I just lost another ssd, apparently an equally crappy Crucial m100 disk after 2 months that gave out showing me no partitions and ata timeouts, so maybe bad luck of it just giving out on a cleansing?  Every disk seems to die in different ways, especially with the advent of ssd's.

-mb


On 12/15/2014 05:59 PM, Michael Torres wrote:
That is odd..... IDK anything about dban but it does seem like something messed with BIOS....  do you have a clean working drive that  you can install and boot to.  One that is NOT a USB?  Try that, at least you'll be able to narrow down the issue in one direction or the other.

Mike

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 5:46 PM, Stephen M <smelheim85@gmail.com> wrote:
Well that didn't do anything still looking for EFI.  But I am going to see about downloading this new version of the BIOS and see if it will run or not.


On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 5:35 PM, Stephen M <smelheim85@gmail.com> wrote:
Haven't tried to reset the BIOS but did try to change the boot order.

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 5:30 PM, Michael Torres <matorres124@gmail.com> wrote:
I am not trying one bit to sound arrogant or sarcastic, but have you tried to reset BIOS? or Re-order the boot order?

Mike

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 5:28 PM, Stephen M <smelheim85@gmail.com> wrote:
This might seem odd.  But is there a chance that dban messed with my BIOS firmware?  I am having trouble loading even a live CD.  BIOS doesn't always work but computer will boot into EFI.  I know it sounds strange but thats the only thing I can think of.  If it was just the drives than I would just assume the boot sector might have been messed up.  But when I try to boot into a live CD it will only do it through EFI.  The same thing happens when I try a live USB.  I know it works on legacy BIOS because my laptop sees it right away. 

Just wanted to know whats the best course of action.  The BIOS is HP and from their website it should be the most current version.

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 2:34 PM, Stephen M <smelheim85@gmail.com> wrote:
Ok, well at this point I should be able to get a program to rewrite the boot sector so I can setup an OS on the drives.  So that is what I am looking for something that will help on that respect.  I am that the creators of dban would not make a program that would wipe a disk completely so that you can never use it again.

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Michael Butash <michael@butash.net> wrote:
It sounds like it wiped at least the boot sector, and probably a good chunk of your os disk as an unintended victim.  Hate to say it, but never used dban, so not sure if it's a glitch or just meant to blatantly wipe *everything* in a system.  Sounds like the later...

If so, you're likely a bit (or lot) hozed.  If you know the geometry of the disk partitions, you can maybe recreate the partitions and access some of your data, but seeing as you're now missing contiguous chunks of disks, my guess is unless you're using forensics tools, you're not going to get at it.

-mb



On 12/15/2014 02:26 PM, Stephen M wrote:
Hi everyone,

I need help again with my computer.  I am not sure what happened, but ever since I used dban to erase one HDD connected through a usb adapter my desktop doesn't want to load an OS.  It was working fine until dban started to erase the entire disk.  I stopped it before it could get too far.  Now when I try to boot into either of my disks it doesn't see them.

I've already tried to use a live CD to correct the problem and I have an OS on one of my drive.  But the computer won't load into and says it can't find a bootable disk.  I am sure that one of the disk as an OS on it.  When I use a live USB it won't load.  But I use it on my laptop and it works just fine.

Any suggestions?

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