Sometimes you really want to nuke the data on your notebook/workstation, so DBAN is a handy live cd for that, providing a variety of algorithms to safely overwrite your data with patterns. Though, on various platforms, the detection of hardware during startup may fail. On a HP 8440p. the card reader as well as eSata made DBAN waiting like forever.
Disabling all external devices in BIOS and booting up again solves the problem, and DBAN greets you 🙂