Having trouble wiping an SSD that apparently has/had BitLocker on it

[PineyCreek]

Looking for some directlon on this. I have a 1 TB Crucial SSD I'm trying to repurpose as a data drive for another system.  This SSD I think has/had BitLocker on it.  It was a donated drive, so I'm uncertain, but the person that provided the drive agreed it might have BitLocker on it, but it had no errors or issues when he removed it from the system.

 

Despite what I've tried, it throws up a variety of errors when formatting is attempted, despite the different ways I've cleaned and wiped it.

 

1) Tried multiple OSes, including GParted to clear the partitions

2) Tried diskpart cleaning under both Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10

3) Tried wiping the drive with DBAN (wipe completed successfully)

 

Disk shows up in every OS.  In GParted (Live) I was able to clear the partition. In diskpart I was able to delete partitions, but format failed.  In Windows Disk Management 50% of the time I can initialize the disk, but 100% of the time it throws an error when I try to format it.  Event viewer shows a failure to access a BitLocker volume.

 

All I want is the drive wiped and usable.  Any suggestions?

[schwellmo92]

All 3 options you listed should've worked, I've used diskpart previously on a bitlocked drive, if you followed the instructions correctly maybe the drive is faulty.

[PineyCreek]

5 minutes ago, schwellmo92 said:

All 3 options you listed should've worked, I've used diskpart previously on a bitlocked drive, if you followed the instructions correctly maybe the drive is faulty.

An additional bit of information: Crucial's own SSD software has no issue seeing the drive, but shows it at 100% capacity despite the cleaning methods used.

[kb5zue]

You should be able to use something like diskpart or what I use (AOMEI Partition Assistant) and delete the partition.  Once the partition is deleted, then everything in/on that partition is gone.  Removing/deleting the partition should get rid of any Bitlocker software.

[PineyCreek]

10 minutes ago, kb5zue said:

You should be able to use something like diskpart or what I use (AOMEI Partition Assistant) and delete the partition.  Once the partition is deleted, then everything in/on that partition is gone.  Removing/deleting the partition should get rid of any Bitlocker software.

yeah, that's the thing.  I've been able to create partitions and delete them repeatedly under both diskpart and Disk Management and GParted...it doesn't solve the problem.  I'll try AOMEI though.

[kb5zue]

Just now, PineyCreek said:

yeah, that's the thing.  I've been able to create partitions and delete them repeatedly under both diskpart and Disk Management and GParted...it doesn't solve the problem.  I'll try AOMEI though.

The thing with AOMEI is that you do things in steps.  In between the steps don't forget to hit the APPLY button in the top left corner.  So something like delete partition, apply.  Create partition, apply.  Format partition, apply.  Don't know why it's that way, it just is but I have been using that software for a pretty good while now without any problems.

[PineyCreek]

8 minutes ago, kb5zue said:

The thing with AOMEI is that you do things in steps.  In between the steps don't forget to hit the APPLY button in the top left corner.  So something like delete partition, apply.  Create partition, apply.  Format partition, apply.  Don't know why it's that way, it just is but I have been using that software for a pretty good while now without any problems.

Couldn't delete the partition.  Couldn't wipe the partition.  Always throws error 6 saying another program has the partition table locked.

[PineyCreek]

Tried clean all on diskpart as well...access denied.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

First, you should never wipe an SSD with something like DBAN that overwrited the entire drive with ones and zeroes. That will unnecessarily reduce remaining write life.

 

Crucial's software should have something called Secure Erase. Secure Erase is the equivalent of DBAN for SSDs. It works by sending a voltage spike to each cell that resets the cells to an empty state. Have you tried that yet?

[PineyCreek]

12 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

First, you should never wipe an SSD with something like DBAN that overwrited the entire drive with ones and zeroes. That will unnecessarily reduce remaining write life.

 

Crucial's software should have something called Secure Erase. Secure Erase is the equivalent of DBAN for SSDs. It works by sending a voltage spike to each cell that resets the cells to an empty state. Have you tried that yet?

Crucial's software can see the drive but otherwise do nothing else to it.  No secure erase, no sanitize, no disk check, no firmware update.  Nothing except read drive status.

 

Also, DBAN was my absolute last option.  Considering partition and formatting had failed under two versions of Windows and GParted and the Crucial SSD software was unusable, and all the variations of diskpart commands tried failed, I decided to try DBAN, which succeeded on a 3 pass wipe.  Bluntly, if I can't use the drive, I don't bloody care about losing a few write cycles.

 

I would like to point out that after all of that I still get BitLocker warnings in Event Viewer, and the drive still shows 100% full in Crucial's software, and partitioning and formatting still fail.

[kb5zue]

I did some looking around using google and found this.  See if you can get it to work for you.  Good Luck.  Sorry about the LARGE text, I just cut/paste what I found.

 

1. Open the power shell as administrator, by right clicking on it and choosing “Run as Administrator”.
2. Check the encryption status of each drive by entering:

   1	manage-bde -status

3. To disable bitlocker enter (note to put quotations too):

   1	Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint "<drive letter>:"

   • For example:

     1	Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint "C:"

4. To remove encryption of the desired drive enter:

   1	manage-bde -off <drive letter>:

   • For example:

     1	manage-bde -off

5. Let the decryption continue in the background such that you have fully decrypted status. You may check the status of Encryption while it is running in the background.
6. Restart the PC.

[PineyCreek]

9 minutes ago, kb5zue said:

I did some looking around using google and found this.  See if you can get it to work for you.  Good Luck.  Sorry about the LARGE text, I just cut/paste what I found.

 

1. Open the power shell as administrator, by right clicking on it and choosing “Run as Administrator”.
2. Check the encryption status of each drive by entering:

   1	manage-bde -status

3. To disable bitlocker enter (note to put quotations too):

   1	Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint "<drive letter>:"

   • For example:

     1	Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint "C:"

4. To remove encryption of the desired drive enter:

   1	manage-bde -off <drive letter>:

   • For example:

     1	manage-bde -off

5. Let the decryption continue in the background such that you have fully decrypted status. You may check the status of Encryption while it is running in the background.
6. Restart the PC.

Yes, there's also the option of manage-bde -forcerecovery <Volume>.  It doesn't work in my case.  I can't get to the point of assigning this drive a drive letter.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

I'm going to try a SSD sector check.  I've got a sneaking suspicion this drive is diseased, either physically or artificially.

[kb5zue]

2 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

Yes, there's also the option of manage-bde -forcerecovery <Volume>.  It doesn't work in my case.  I can't get to the point of assigning this drive a drive letter.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

I'm going to try a SSD sector check.  I've got a sneaking suspicion this drive is diseased, either physically or artificially.

Oh, it's got a disease all right.  It's called the Bitlocker disease.  Dang though, I was hoping that last bit of information would do the trick.  Good luck and Happy New Year.

[PineyCreek]

Used AOMEI to start a sector check...it's found 17 bad sectors in the first 10 minutes.  I suspect this may be the reason I'm having trouble.

 

Blecccch.  Trying to save costs by using parts I didn't personally pick seems to always end up costing more >_>

[PineyCreek]

Lol...yeah...this drive's like swiss cheese...so much for 'this drive doesn't have any issues'....

[PineyCreek]

So...AOMEI finished its quick scan of the SSD and it looks like 95%+ of the sectors are damaged.  Somehow.

 

This seems very strange if the disk was fine before it was handed to me.  I haven't been electrocuted while holding it.  SATA cables are new and tight at both ends...

 

Could a bad SATA cable or port somehow cause software to interpret an SSD to be damaged?  I know it's a stretch, but I can't think of anything else that would cause an SSD to be this damaged.