I need to sell drives that contain all banking data and passwords so I was looking at how to do erase them. Im about to give up on trying to do this myself because feels pretty scary. I have been checking guides, and SSDs are not recommended to use something like nwipe with 3 DoD passes. They say to use the internal Secure Erase parameters but it’s too complex.
It appears each vendor has their own propietary windows tools, but im booting from the OS drive, it will not work since it needs to be unmounted, plus im not sure if you should trust that anyway. So I was looking how to do it with Linux.
I used to use partedmagic which had a nice GUI but I lost the iso, and I cannot pay for this stuff right now (now it’s commercial)
Anyone knows a tutorial that actually works? I need to wipe a Samsung Evo 970 Plus and a Crucial MX500, this one is older, both are 1TB.
The tutorials I have found:
But im worried about how to do this properly. I have already burned Ubuntu Live on an USB, but like said im not sure if these tutorials will work or screw up something. The drives have been used for years but they work great, if I can do this I can sell them, I really need the money. If someone knows please let me know.
I need to sell drives that contain all banking data and passwords so I was looking at how to do erase them.
Since SSDs have sectors that can’t be written by a user, rather than by the hardware itself it’s pretty hard to erase it.
I have been checking guides, and SSDs are not recommended to use something like nwipe with 3 DoD passes. They say to use the internal Secure Erase parameters but it’s too complex.
As far as I know the internal erase function of your motherboard and specialized devices for SSD destructions are the only option to erase data of an SSD besides physical destroying it.
It appears each vendor has their own propietary windows tools, but im booting from the OS drive, it will not work since it needs to be unmounted, plus im not sure if you should trust that anyway. So I was looking how to do it with Linux.
I would not trust them. Mainly because disk manufacture fucked up so many things in the past.
I used to use partedmagic which had a nice GUI but I lost the iso, and I cannot pay for this stuff right now (now it’s commercial)
I highly doubt that it can actually securely erase it and there is no proof that it can either.
Anyone knows a tutorial that actually works? I need to wipe a Samsung Evo 970 Plus and a Crucial MX500, this one is older, both are 1TB.
If I would, you would use Secure Erase from the motherboard or physically destroy the SSD with an SSD shredder.
Additionally, it is good if only encrypted data was stored on the SSDs.
The most reliable method for Secure Erase is using manufacturer-specific tools such as Samsung Magician, Crucial Storage Executive.
Because of the way NAND flash works it’s really complicated to make 100% sure everything got deleted. The above mentioned tools are your best bet (if you do trust them).
To be extra secure you can fill the SSD once with random data to the brim and then format & manually call TRIM again.
The only way to be 100% secure with SSDs unfortunately means to physically destroy the drive.
The drives have Bitlocker enabled. But I was using it for a while before doing full disk encryption with Bitlocker. Bitlocker does overwrite empty space or something and then encrypts but im not sure if that is enough. But man that is pretty heavy stuff, an SSD shredder? I mean the idea was to sell it.
But like i said, how im supposed to run these tools when im booting from the OS? if I boot from the Crucial one on Windows, and I need Windows to run Crucial Storage Executive, then I cannot do it because i cannot unmount it. Im not sure if there is some free bootable media thing I could use. But you still are trusting some propietary software. Also I don’t know how to do the Trim thing. Please could someone provide step by step instructions since I dont want to damage the drives I really need the money.
If you trust the encryption of BitLocker (which is AES128) and you define it as secure enough, every bit of information that is/was stored after and while BitLocker was enabled should be okay.
If the data was on the drive before BitLocker was enabled, or you disabled it, than not.
Im not sure if I copied things like keepass database or other sensitive data before encrypting them. In any case, how would I go about this? Can I follow this and it will work?
Btw, how would you backup your data before doing this? I have unused HDD USB drives. Should I install Debian on it with full disk encryption, then via dislocker paste my relevant backups there and then perform the guide above? (im talking about encryption from scratch just to avoid this in the future, even if it’s HDD anyway)
yes you can*** (to an extent and depending on certain circumstances).
I’m not going to link my guide since it has already been linked, but it is what I strongly suggest doing because it combines both software and hardware erasure.
and again, please please please just always encrypt all drives, even if your password is literally password, it still helps in this case.
Hi, I assume the divestos guide is your guide because it says divested computing. I have some questions:
shred --iterations 1 --verbose [DRIVE]
How long will this take on an HDD compared to an SSD? both around 1TB
How would you make backups from the bitlocker drives into another drive? Should I install Debian with FDE and put the files there first?
As far as the distro, will Ubuntu Live work?
Any other tips? I am a bit dissapointed because im worried there is no way to delete data fully without smashing it with a hammer, but I really need to sell it because I need the money so I don’t know.
PS: I forgot to ask, i would like to try your Extirpater -This app is just installed in a phone and click “Start”? I never thought about doing these things in phones since I never have anything of value but is interesting in case I want to sell phones too.