Here is the interesting feature (or rather, the critical flaw) regarding this topic:

You can also erase a hard drive using a Windows XP installation CD.

Hour two. 34% complete. He left the room and made coffee. When he came back, the screen read [sda] ... pass 2 of 3 . The one-pass. He remembered the second diary entry he'd read: "Arthur came home late. Smelled of beer. Just like his grandfather. The apple doesn't fall far." Arthur had been seventeen. He'd been at a study group. He had never touched a drop until college. The lie had been the point.

DBAN finished successfully.

Because Windows XP lacks a "secure erase" feature, users had to rely on a tool called DBAN . This tool is interesting because it doesn't just delete the index; it flips every magnetic bit on the drive (turning all 1s to 0s).