Knoppix - how reliable it is for HDD erasing? (compared to DBAN and others)

[emtr]

Some time ago I used Knoppix to erase HDD (not SSD) with disk shredding. I was directed to it after lots of other tools just failed to work:

DBAN - failed, PCI sysf error. cannot disable the Media card reader in BIOS, cannot start the program at all..
HDDerase - considered the best as it can erase even sectors that DBAN cannot - tried to run it from DVD, again does not start properly, I enter A: in MS DOS rather than CD drive.. never been able to run it
MHDD - I do not even know how this program does it, nowhere explained

Eraser - runs some erasing processes of Free space but does not wipe out outside windows, I do not like the idea of running it from windows, I want to run outside windows

Knoppix - created a boot from USB flash drive - worked, selected the 600MB iso and installed to make a bootable USB. According to its instructions, I selected Console/Terminal/Shell option from it, typed command to start shredding and then I get like:

shred: dev/sda: pass 12/101 (111111) 125GiB/150GiB 83%
shred: dev/sda: pass 12/101 (111111) 135GiB/150GiB 85%
shred: dev/sda: pass 12/101 (111111) 144GiB/150GiB 92%
shred: dev/sda: pass 12/101 (111111) 149GiB/150GiB 98%

etc, until it reaches pass 101/101, I calculated ETA: 50 Hours

I ran 25 passes and didn't feel like going for more (it had to run 101 times), so then force shut down after the 25th, is this enough? Did I do any good erasing like DBAN or? So far this is the only tool that worked for me.

Do I need to do more? Is it as good as DBAN if I want the same job done or do I still need to use any of the mentioned previous tools?

[emtr]

Just getting rid of pictures that I do not wanna be retrieved when selling a system to a store, also that means both the picture and the filename that also has information needs to be gone and unretrievable. Should I understand that Knoppix is enough to get rid of pictures and their filename too?

Hello?

[Werner P. Schulz]

Secure deletion of data isn't a question of Knoppix. It is a question of understanding the background of deletion.Read more about this for example at this paper
www.usenix.org/events/sec01/full_papers/bauer/bauer.pdf

And why not alternatively physically destroy the harddrive?