Samsung SSD wipe

[Domain16]

What is the best way to wipe my Samsung 860 EVO without dmg? It is currently my boot device on an old build for windows and now my only device on my system. I'm taking this SSD for my (new)build as extra gaming storage and starting from scratch on the current (old) build for my wife. I don't need any files on my 860 EVO.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Use the Secure Erase feature in Samsung Magician. It will reset your SSD to its original, uninitialized and unformatted state without loss of write life.

 

Do NOT use a program that writes ones and zeros to overwrite the data. Besides taking way longer, it also will reduce write life.

[Domain16]

48 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Use the Secure Erase feature in Samsung Magician. It will reset your SSD to its original, uninitialized and unformatted state without loss of write life.

 

Do NOT use a program that writes ones and zeros to overwrite the data. Besides taking way longer, it also will reduce write life.

Just installed the ssd into my new build. Everything hooked up correctly but it's not reading the ssd, any ideas? I planned to wipe the drive once installed in my new build.

[Kisai]

4 minutes ago, Domain16 said:

Just installed the ssd into my new build. Everything hooked up correctly but it's not reading the ssd, any ideas? I planned to wipe the drive once installed in my new build.

If you have certain BIOS's, you can actually trigger the secure erase of NVme SSD's and SATA SSD's. This costs one write cycle.

 

Don't use secure erase software that writes data to the drive (eg military/nsa) as that will cost at least 5 writes to the drive. So on TLC you may drastically destroy remaining write cycles. This kind of software is intended for magnetic storage since a single erase isn't good enough.

 

As for how to read a transplanted SSD.

 

a) Did you tell it to boot from the DRIVE and not the WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER ? The Windows Boot Manager will only boot if selected from the UEFI BIOS

 

b) Did you toggle AHCI/RAID from the SATA/HDD/SDD menu in the BIOS, the optimal setting is RAID if the Intel RST driver is installed on Intel systems. If the OS was previously installed in AHCI mode, then it will only boot in AHCI.

 

Ideally, you should install the OS fresh in UEFI mode, with the RAID (Intel RST) enabled in the BIOS, which means the RST driver needs to be installed at installation time (F6 driver.) If you install the OS in AHCI mode then it will be really hard to get it out of AHCI mode and into RAID without potentially destroying the OS install.

 

 

[Domain16]

5 minutes ago, Kisai said:

If you have certain BIOS's, you can actually trigger the secure erase of NVme SSD's and SATA SSD's. This costs one write cycle.

 

Don't use secure erase software that writes data to the drive (eg military/nsa) as that will cost at least 5 writes to the drive. So on TLC you may drastically destroy remaining write cycles. This kind of software is intended for magnetic storage since a single erase isn't good enough.

 

As for how to read a transplanted SSD.

 

a) Did you tell it to boot from the DRIVE and not the WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER ? The Windows Boot Manager will only boot if selected from the UEFI BIOS

 

b) Did you toggle AHCI/RAID from the SATA/HDD/SDD menu in the BIOS, the optimal setting is RAID if the Intel RST driver is installed on Intel systems. If the OS was previously installed in AHCI mode, then it will only boot in AHCI.

 

Ideally, you should install the OS fresh in UEFI mode, with the RAID (Intel RST) enabled in the BIOS, which means the RST driver needs to be installed at installation time (F6 driver.) If you install the OS in AHCI mode then it will be really hard to get it out of AHCI mode and into RAID without potentially destroying the OS install.

 

 

It started reading the new devise now, I just reset the PC for a 2nd time. So Samsung magician is the way to go?

[Kisai]

2 minutes ago, Domain16 said:

It started reading the new devise now, I just reset the PC for a 2nd time. So Samsung magician is the way to go?

Yeah, I'd opt for that option, just make sure you wipe the right drive.

[Domain16]

12 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Yeah, I'd opt for that option, just make sure you wipe the right drive.

Now I'm at the point where the Samsung secure erase is not detecting my ssd. I'm close to just taking a 100gb hit and forgetting about wiping it.

[Kisai]

8 hours ago, Domain16 said:

Now I'm at the point where the Samsung secure erase is not detecting my ssd. I'm close to just taking a 100gb hit and forgetting about wiping it.

 

If the drive is detected by the OS, you can also just delete the files normally and then do a quick format to reset the partition table. Data removed from a SSD is never recoverable with standard tech or forensic tools. Hence I warn people not to accidentally erase the wrong drive, because SSD's with TRIM support can not undelete files.