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Questions tagged [secure-erase]

Secure erase is a command to tell an ATA mass storage device to completely wipe itself.

Secure erase is a command to tell an ATA mass storage device to completely wipe itself. No input it needed from the user other than preparing the drive (e.g. making sure it is not in the frozen state, having a valid password set, etc etc) and sending the command.

After this the drive will completely wipe itself.

171 questions
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How to wipe free disk space in Linux?

When a file is deleted, its contents may still be left in the filesystem, unless explicitly overwritten with something else. The wipe command can securely erase files, but does not seem to allow erasing free disk space not used by any files. What…
Alex B
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Securely erasing all data from a hard drive

I am about to sell my old desktop PC and I am cautious about some of my sensitive information being available to the purchaser, even after reformatting the hard-drive, using data recovery software. How can I securely wipe the hard drive so that the…
Josh Hunt
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Using `shred` from the command line

I need to securely erase some files. I have used shred on linux systems before, so I looked around and found that shred is part of the coreutils package in macports. I did port install coreutils to install coreutils, but I still can't find shred in…
inspectorG4dget
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Why is my /dev/random so slow when using dd?

I am trying to semi-securely erase a bunch of hard drives. The following is working at 20-50Mb/s dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda But dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda seems not to work. Also when I type dd if=/dev/random of=stdout It only gives me a…
Mikey
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Is using multiple passes for wiping a disk really necessary?

To stupid people, like me, you would have thought overwriting each bit on a disk would render the data completely unrecoverable. Why do disk wiping tools have the option for multiple passes, i.e. 3 or 5, even 7 and different methods? Surely the…
Kez
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How many passes do you need to wipe/shred your files to make them not undeletable?

If you have a private data on a recent, normal hard drive - how many passes do you need to delete the data to make it unrecoverable? Not in the sense, that a forensic team of 20 experts with a budget of 100 million euro or dollars and 10 years of…
user unknown
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How do I wipe an encrypted USB flash drive?

My company has issued an encrypted USB flash drive which I stored my personal data in it. I am resigning from the company and I wanted to wipe the data in the usb drive but I have forgotten the password. I tried using dban and nuke to wipe the data…
ilovetolearn
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How to erase a hard drive with unwritable sectors?

So I have a hard drive that is failing. I want to erase the data on it before sending it for replacement. I'm trying to use dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdXX, but it stops at the first write error. How can I overwrite the drive with zeros, ignoring write…
TestUser16418
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How to securely erase an NVMe SSD

It's generally accepted that SSDs cannot be securely wiped by writing patterns to the drive, due to features such as wear leveling and over-provisioning, and that the most secure way to wipe a modern SSD is using the ATA Secure Erase firmware…
Hashim Aziz
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How can I securely format a solid-state drive?

When selling / throwing away / giving away HDDs I always use DBAN to do a DoD wipe first. Is this still a valid thing to do on an SSD? Will it have an adverse effect on the SSD's lifespan?
Shevek
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hdparm doesn't read SSD? HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

I'm trying to use hdparm to do secure erase of my 512GB SSD SK Hynix. SSD has Windows 10 installed in it. I boot Ubuntu from a usb flash drive. sudo fdisk -l I get a lot of different disks, turns out /dev/sda is my 8gb flash drive, not SSD. SSD is…
Jack
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How to secure delete file or folder in windows?

How do I securely delete (i.e., permanently delete) a file and/or folder in Windows? Secure in terms that the deleted file/folder can not be restored. Can you recommend any free or open source tool?
Peter Stegnar
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How can I render an SSD permanently inoperable with no chance of data recovery?

On platter drives, when it is time to dispose of them, a degaussing takes care of the data and in most cases erases the factory pre-recorded servo tracks rendering the drive useless. What does one do to an SSD to get the same data destructive and…
Carl B
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Does using TrueCrypt makes "file shredding" tools obsolete?

On Windows, I frequently use Eraser, to delete securely the files I remove. I've been looking at TrueCrypt recently, and its whole disk encryption. If I encrypt the whole disk, does that make using secure deletion tools moot? I mean, could someone…
Manu
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Is it normal for secure erase on a Samsung SSD to take only a few seconds?

I've run several secure erase operations on my 500GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO using the procedure described on the Linux ATA wiki and it takes only a few seconds to complete: linux-203v:~ # time hdparm --user-master u --security-erase foo…
bwDraco
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