Next step for wiping disks through external USB disk reader

Hardware Hub Storage
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Hello,

Apologies if it is the wrong topic location. I’m a bit at loss what is a good next step on how securely wipe disks. In short should I use something like partedmagic or do I buy cables, open my case and connect to the motherboard? Or another option I don’t know?

I have old computer gear I would like to donate. A NAS, dad’s computer… Before doing that I would like to securely clean the disks. The NAS has two WD Caviar Green SATA drives of 1.0TB. So I got the idea to get the disks out and connect them through an interface.

  • Got the Inateck SA03001 external disk reader USB 3.0 for IDE/SATA disks.
  • Read about software like df, fdisk, lsblk, cfdisk, parted, sfdisk…

I read somewhere you can’t safely wipe SATA drives through an USB connection and it needs to be done through software. Mhmm. So I got these as next possible steps:

  • Get something like partedmagic and boot my computer with that?
  • Get cables and connect directly to my mobo (Asus ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI). If so which cables?
  • Other?

Have a nice day.

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If you’re paranoid (this will work using an USB-adapter)

Do note that this isn’t the way to wipe SSDs though, in that case you should use the ata secure erase command. That however isn’t recommended using USB.

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I think if you do full disk encryption and just fill the disk to the brim with data, any kind of data, even randomly generated large data, you should be good.

Then do a quick format and do it again for a total of 3x, should be good?

But then some data could be clandestinely hidden in areas of disk labeled as bad sectors. If that is not in your threat model, thr above tip could be good enough for most people.

Just also a reminder that for disks involved in government work (or maybe even corporate ones), you may need to consult actual relevant protocols.

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For 1 or 2 drives with just family photos and “seven seas productions films”, I would probably not go super crazy. A non-quick format in Windows would be enough if the partitions are just standard Windows ones that you can see the data on in Windows.

If they have partitions from another OS, you’ll need to clean the partition table and then format a new partition that covers the whole disk - or use a tool like the one linked by the post above.

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