I’m trying to use the ZimaBoard to run DBAN 2.3.0, and it’s not working. I don’t want to wipe the unit itself, but rather use it as a wiping station where I can plug SATA drives in for wiping. However, after "Loading dban.bzi completes, an error shows up “cat: can’t open '/proc/cmdline/ : No such file or directory”. I’ve tried both a bootable USB and an external CD drive to run it, and I get the same error each time. Also, ShredOS doesn’t seem to work either. Fails to fully boot the OS. Does anyone have any ideas?
Based on my digging, it seems the main issue is a boot-mode mismatch (UEFI vs. Legacy/CSM).
- In your post you mentioned DBAN 2.3.0 loads, then shows “
cat: can’t open '/proc/cmdline': No such file or directory.” That message is commonly reported when DBAN fails to initialize on newer systems; many users only get DBAN to run after switching from UEFI to Legacy/CSM. Linus Tech TipsReddit - ZimaBoard’s current guidance emphasizes UEFI booting (ZimaOS no longer supports Legacy BIOS), so your unit is booting in UEFI mode—exactly where older tools like DBAN tend to stumble.
- For ShredOS, if you used the ISO image: the project notes that the ISO is Legacy-BIOS only, while the .img build supports both BIOS and UEFI. Using the ISO in a UEFI-only environment often results in an incomplete boot. GitHub
- One more bit of context: DBAN development ended after version 2.3.0 in 2015, and even the official site says DBAN doesn’t erase SSDs—so compatibility on modern platforms (NVMe/UEFI) can be hit-or-miss. WikipediaDarik’s Boot And Nuke
Hope this is helpful.
Thank you for all of this. Especially your point on the iso vs img file. I believe that is where I errored. I’ll look into this for sure.
-Cheers!