how to securely erase SSD?

[Ashleyyyy]

my mother is selling a laptop and I need to erase all the stuff off of it. my idea was to just reinstall Windows. formatting the SSD in the process. is that enough to erase everything?

[Glennieboyyy007]

I like to overwrite it 4 times. one time with all 00's, one time all 01's, one time all 10's and one time all 11's. that way there is definitely no evidence left.

 

to answer the question itself, windows wont find the data anymore, but people that tear open the stuff can recover it

[IdiotPenguin]

There’s an option in windows where you can reset everything and you can choose to delete everything or just do a fast format. Gonna have to find it somewhere yourself tho or look up a vid

 

(Atleast this is what I did on win 10)

[Ashleyyyy]

1 minute ago, IdiotPenguin said:

There’s an option in windows where you can reset everything and you can choose to delete everything or just do a fast format. Gonna have to find it somewhere yourself tho or look up a vid

 

(Atleast this is what I did on win 10)

is that secure though? will that delete the wifi passwords and everything?

[IdiotPenguin]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

is that secure though? will that delete the wifi passwords and everything?

I remember it saying select this if you are selling this device or something like that and for the quick format option it said select this if you are keeping device (something along those lines).

 

im not sure how secure it is tho but windows is somewhat trustworthy right?

[seagate_surfer]

Use tools that offer you the option to "secure erase" the hard drive or alternatively you can try removing partitions with Microsoft DiskPart*. You cannot Secure Erase a current working drive so the target drive needs to be accessed from another machine:

1. Use the Windows key + X keyboard shortcut to open the Power User menu and select Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Connect the drive you want clean and format to your computer.

3. Type the following command and press Enter:

   diskpart

4. Type the following command to list all the available drives and press Enter:

   list disk

5. Take your time and very carefully, on the output from the previous command, identify the drive you want to clean.

   For example, in the screenshot below, we can see that we have four different drives listed, including Disk 0, which is 30GB, and we can quickly determine that it's the primary system drive. And because we're trying to clean an 8GB drive, we can easily spot that Disk 3 is the drive we need to select.

   Use the following command to select the drive and press Enter:

   select disk 3

   Remember to change 3 in the command with the number of the drive you want to clean. If you fail to choose the correct number will erase all the data from the wrong drive.

   

6. Type the following command to clean the drive and press Enter:

   clean

7. Type the following command to double-check the drive still selected and press Enter:

   list disk

   If the drive still selected, you will notice an asterisk (*) next to the disk.

8. Type the following command to create a partition and press Enter:

   create partition primary

9. Type the following command to select the partition you just created and press Enter:

   select partition 1

10. Type the following command to set the partition active and press Enter:

    active

    

11. Type the following command to format the partition using NTFS and to set a label, and press Enter:

    format FS=NTFS label=WC-Drive quick

    Remember to change the WC-Drive in the command with the drive name you want to use.

12. Type the following command to assign a drive letter and press Enter:

    assign letter=W

    Remember to change W in the command with a letter you want that isn't in use by another drive on This PC.

    

13. Use the exit command to close DiskPart to complete the task.

 

[homeap5]

https://www.geckoandfly.com/24060/secure-wipe-clean-ssd/

 

Edited July 18, 2018 by colonel_mortis
Removed link to site on internal blacklist for guerrilla marketing

[Ashleyyyy]

9 hours ago, seagate_surfer said:

Use tools that offer you the option to "secure erase" the hard drive 

it's an SSD. I read somewhere that securely erasing ssd's is really bad for it.. is that true?

 

EDIT: and I can't remove the SSD so that other thing won't work. 

 

9 hours ago, IdiotPenguin said:

I remember it saying select this if you are selling this device or something like that and for the quick format option it said select this if you are keeping device (something along those lines).

 

im not sure how secure it is tho but windows is somewhat trustworthy right?

yeah I don't know how secure it it either. 

[WereCatf]

6 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

it's an SSD. I read somewhere that securely erasing ssd's is really bad for it.. is that true?

No, it's not.

[seagate_surfer]

19 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

it's an SSD. I read somewhere that securely erasing ssd's is really bad for it.. is that true?

 

EDIT: and I can't remove the SSD so that other thing won't work. 

Well, the HDD store data different than the SSDs and that affects the amount of times you can write a hard drive and the amount of times you can write on a SSD, the short story is that for whenever you move or copy files or make actions on you SSD that require the "write" function (watching movies, pictures, files is not writing that's reading) the SSD needs to erase the whole block and move data to another one while we wait and then copy the new data in that block and that's a lot! The hard drive move data only by magnetizing/demagnetizing the sectors and that's less consuming than the way SSDs save data in their sectors, that's why it is recommended to keep the writes on your SSDs to the minimum, that involves benchmarking, diskdefrag, write drives back to zeros and so on. So, this is not that the SSD is gonna die or something, it is only that if you are writing unnecessarily in your SSDs, you are using part of their load cycles limit for things that are not as important..

[Sakkura]

46 minutes ago, Glennieboyyy007 said:

I like to overwrite it 4 times. one time with all 00's, one time all 01's, one time all 10's and one time all 11's. that way there is definitely no evidence left.

 

to answer the question itself, windows wont find the data anymore, but people that tear open the stuff can recover it

This is a terrible idea. You can't control where the data gets written, so you're not effectively deleting old data. Besides, large amounts of writes like that will consume some of the drive's write endurance (though not a terribly big chunk, it's still unnecessary).

14 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

it's an SSD. I read somewhere that securely erasing ssd's is really bad for it.. is that true?

 

EDIT: and I can't remove the SSD so that other thing won't work. 

If you try to do it by overwriting, then it would be a little bit bad, as you're wasting some of the drive's write endurance.

 

But a proper secure erase is completely fine for the drive.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Formatting a drive does not securely erase it, regardless of the type of formatting you do (EDIT: At least in Windows land, I don't know if Linux land does anything different). It only wipes the partition information and creates a new one for it. The previous data is still there. For those curious, doing a "Full Format" on Windows just runs a thorough scan disk check on it to detect for errors. Nothing more.

 

If you want to securely erase a drive, use a tool that does it. CCleaner has one. Your SSD's manufacturer may also have a tool.

 

20 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

it's an SSD. I read somewhere that securely erasing ssd's is really bad for it.. is that true?

 

EDIT: and I can't remove the SSD so that other thing won't work. 

A proper secure erase at worst will consume a few of the PE cycles of all of the cells.

 

And if you need to do this outside of Windows, you can use a Linux live distro. You can find instructions on how to do so at https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/371014/erasing-a-linux-laptop

 

Alternatively you can see if your UEFI settings has an option to secure erase SSDs.

[SolarNova]

A program like CCleaner would do it.

Plug the drive into another machine, run CCleaner from that machines OS and secure format the drive.

 

[Ashleyyyy]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

And if you need to do this outside of Windows, you can use a Linux live distro. You can find instructions on how to do so at https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/371014/erasing-a-linux-laptop

which command specifically? there are a lot on that page. 

 

1 minute ago, SolarNova said:

A program like CCleaner would do it.

Plug the drive into another machine, run CCleaner from that machines OS and secure format the drive.

i can't take the ssd out. 

[seagate_surfer]

If you cannot access the SSD from another computer chances are you won't be able to do any of this. The more you could do is reinstall Windows and that will do a new partition/format for you but that's not secure erasing...

[Ashleyyyy]

1 minute ago, seagate_surfer said:

If you cannot access the SSD from another computer chances are you won't be able to do any of this. The more you could do is reinstall Windows and that will do a new partition/format for you but that's not secure erasing...

i could use the Linux option @M.Yurizaki suggested because i can run linux from a usb stick. 

[seagate_surfer]

Sounds like a plan! Go for it and try it, let us know.

[Ashleyyyy]

3 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

Sounds like a plan! Go for it and try it, let us know.

i don't know which command to use. the link provided goes to a page with loads of different commands... 

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

which command specifically? there are a lot on that page.

I should've probably reviewed that page more clearly, since it's more applicable to HDDs than SSDs.

 

So the command I've found that seems to be mentioned is hdparm. You can read up how to use it to secure erase an SSD at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drive/Memory_cell_clearing The problem is that it's a crapshoot which distro in its live form comes with it.

 

You can also try GParted as a "live CD" (https://gparted.org/livecd.php). Instructions on how to get this running and erase the SSD can be found at http://www.gskill.us/forum/forum/product-discussion/ssd/4538-use-gparted-to-secure-erase-ssd?t=5901 (it appears they use hdparm too)

[Ashleyyyy]

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I should've probably reviewed that page more clearly, since it's more applicable to HDDs than SSDs.

 

So the command I've found that seems to be mentioned is hdparm. You can read up how to use it to secure erase an SSD at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drive/Memory_cell_clearing The problem is that it's a crapshoot which distro in its live form comes with it.

 

You can also try GParted as a "live CD" (https://gparted.org/livecd.php). Instructions on how to get this running and erase the SSD can be found at http://www.gskill.us/forum/forum/product-discussion/ssd/4538-use-gparted-to-secure-erase-ssd?t=5901 (it appears they use hdparm too)

thank you! 

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

thank you! 

Let me know if that actually works

[MEC-777]

Most people seem to be overly cautious about this type of thing. Does your mother have some super-sensitive information on this device? If not, I wouldn't worry about it, especially if you're just selling it to another "average user". Those who are after personal information from people usually go about it in other ways, not buying used devices and trying to recover the previous data stored on the drives. 

 

I complete clean installation of Windows with the option of re-formatting in the process should be fine in this situation. 

[MEC-777]

9 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I should've probably reviewed that page more clearly, since it's more applicable to HDDs than SSDs.

 

So the command I've found that seems to be mentioned is hdparm. You can read up how to use it to secure erase an SSD at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drive/Memory_cell_clearing The problem is that it's a crapshoot which distro in its live form comes with it.

 

You can also try GParted as a "live CD" (https://gparted.org/livecd.php). Instructions on how to get this running and erase the SSD can be found at http://www.gskill.us/forum/forum/product-discussion/ssd/4538-use-gparted-to-secure-erase-ssd?t=5901 (it appears they use hdparm too)

Could use a live USB with a light Linux distro like MX and install these applications to it (many come with Gparted, I believe). Then they would just have to boot to the live Linux USB and run the application to perform the secure erase on the SSD, no?

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, MEC-777 said:

Could use a live USB with a light Linux distro like MX and install these applications to it (many come with Gparted, I believe). Then they would just have to boot to the live Linux USB and run the application to perform the secure erase on the SSD, no?

The live version of GParted apparently comes with hdparm, if the rep from GSkill who wrote that post means anything.

 

Alternatively you could set aside space as permanent storage on the live distro so you can install the necessary things if it doesn't come with it, but eh, I'm trying to keep things simple.

[Ashleyyyy]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Let me know if that actually works

it didn't. that laptop has a load of security stuff in the bios that I can't turn off so I can't boot a usb from it. 

 

it also has no cd drive. so yeah... 

 

I think I'm just gonna trust Windows and go with the "clean the drive" option when you reset the system from system settings.