What should I do before I return an SSD to Amazon for example regarding personal data?
In my case that’s a Samsung 990 Pro.
Need help.
Btw, secure erase by Samsung’s Magician software gives me when booting a bad shim error.
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You could always try command-line it, something like diskpart’s clean disk command? I always default to that because it actually works when other programs often won’t.
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Can you disable secure boot in the bios, then try Samsung’s secure erase?
Depending on what you have written to a drive, removing partition table would not delete any data, just the index of where the files are.
Edit:
clean all
command does delete the partition tables, And sends zeros to all the sectors of the drive. Does not work on the boot drive
Which should be good enough for general returns, unless you have potentially criminally incriminating evidence, in which case, seek a lawyer and don’t return drive
I’d boot a gparted ISO from a USB stick and just erased the partition(s).
Nuke it from above, the only way to be sure.
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I can.
What’s the difference between Samsung’s secure erase and clean all via command line?
Isn’t clean all just going on format and remove the arrow from quick?
Well a client’s session moved on it and I don’t want it to be easily accessed and also some of my stuff.
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I have not used the clean all function of diskpart
It looks, according to the link, to be good enough for what you need.
I use secure erase, and from the shim thing, suspect Secure Boot is enabled.
IF that is what is stopping the secure erase, I would trust the manufacturers tool to securely erase it.
But if the problem is not secure boot, then the diskpart clean all might zero it.
Personally, I would use a live Linux, and run something like hdparm to do it, but I am comfortable with Linux.
There are other tools, like DBan and such to overwrite the drive, which I have not used, but would probably work.
As you are returning the drive, it should be useable by the person they resell it to
Some points/issues:
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You trust the drive firmware to do the correct thing during a “Secure erase”. Firmware bugs have always existed.
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Deleting partitions changes a few kB of data (depending on MBR or GPT style), so will not prevent recovery of data.
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“Overwriting” even the entire drive may not erase/overwrite existing data, because 1) Drives may compress the data before storing, so a zero-fill is stored more efficiently to prevent NAND block erase cycles. 2) Spare NAND blocks on the drive for error recovery and wear-level are used internally by the firmware and are invisible to the OS, even when filling with random data.
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What is the personal or financial risk to you if the drive was recoverable, and someone did that, despite your efforts to wipe it? If it is more than the cost of the drive and you don’t like to gamble, then I would personally physically destroy it. Companies do this all the time as the risk is not worth it.
So the best you can do is, in order:
- assume the firmware works correctly and do a secure erase.
- Linux:
nvme format -s1 /dev/nvme0n1
- Fill with random data to force as many blocks to be erased and overwritten.
- Linux:
pv < /dev/urandom > /dev/nvme0n1
Windows doesn’t run on my machines so I have no idea what the commands are there.
In future, consider using full-disk encryption for all data, then you don’t need to do anything.
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Also worth asking the reason for return, in case faulty; like, its not a problem that would interrupt an erase?
It is working but the controller gets extremely hot which is not normal
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nvme format/sanitize should be working. if not, just use something like dd and write it full of random. there are usb bootable linux distros like knoppix/grml for this.
Some motherboards, like my ASRock board offer Secure Erase functionality right into the UEFI and you can just load into the UEFI to secure erase any SSD that way.
IF you have a second PC handy that can access that over-rated, nasty, stick of silicon here’s what I would do with it. I’d use something like Mini Tool Partition Wizard and write zeros over all the sectors. It’s damaged and nobody is going to get proper use from it. Resale is the Retailer’s problem. It should not be your problem. If you wanted to be extra careful you could also do a military grade wipe. Lots of free software can do this for you. Mark-D-Stroyer also makes a worthy suggestion and I’ve used this method as well. But all of this aside…
I’m wondering if you purchased it via Amazon because if you have, here’s what you do: You call them. Don’t settle for a bot. Insist on speaking to a genuine biological person. Tell that person that there is data on the drive and you can’t get it off. Explain to them that this is a serious security issue and that you don’t want to say what sort of data is on the drive but you can’t remove it because the drive is broken. Insist on a replacement. Tell them that you would much rather prefer to destroy the drive because you don’t want to be held legally liable << use those words) for someone else’s data. Tell them that you don’t even know if you can legally send it back to them because although you can read it, you CAN’T write anything to the drive. Amazon will put you on hold but they will get back to you.
Here’s what happened to me: I got a full refund instead. I was instructed to destroy the drive. I did not even have to waste my time and energy returning it. Now in my case it was supposed to be a new hard drive. It really did have someone else’s data on it. (Nasty stuff too.) Because Amazon dealt with me in an honourable fashion I purchased the same make and model of drive but I made sure it came from a different vendor. Now I don’t know if they only do this once but it is another option to consider. Wishing you the best.
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