I purchased a broken hard drive. I copied some of my movies on it. It is broken now. I want to send it back to the factory.
I wanted to permanently delete all my files with "Sdelete" secure tool. This would take 20 hours to overwrite 4TB with random bits. My drive crashes every 10 minute, so I cannot use the command line tool.
What alternative are there to clean my data. I know formatting is not safe?
You could de-gauss it, but if found out by the manufacturer, they may void the warranty (as it could damage the electronics), otherwise, there isn't much you can do to fully wipe the drive, especially since you can't keep it running long enough to do a 0 & 1's wipe, be even using wipe tools, its pretty hard to completely wipe modern drives properly. Gutmann's methods are antiquated nowadays, and since you want to return it to the factory, your options are limited.
Realistically, chances are, the drive will be either tossed and recycled, or repaired and wiped by the manufacturer anyways, and then used as a warranty replacement for someone else.
