Help with Secure Erase on Intel 320 ssd....

I'm sending back my intel 320 ssd and would like to secure erase it but am having a hard time performing the task.

I followed intel's suggestion on plug/unplug while running ssd toolbox and it doesn't work.

I tried setting a master password on bios but it still shows ata security enabled.

Can anyone give me any other possibilities? Thanks.

Oh, I have already reformatted the drive and erased all volumes. You think this is enough to send the drive back?

 

reformat would not erase anything unless you do a long one. even then, there is a chance of some left over due to the nature of SSD. Though that usually is good enough unless you are bin laden type of figures.

get a bootable linux(on usb key) and boot into it, then sleep and resume. after that, use hdparm for SE. there was a link somewhere i posted before. you can also try google on 'linux secure erase'

 

Thanks! I ended up using the info from this site and it worked out fairly easy. Should have just done this from the beginning instead of waste hours trying to get the Intel toolbox to work.....

Guide Secure Erase With bootable CD/USB Linux.. Point and Click Method

 

Yeah, Intel requires you to do a secure erase by placing the SSD as a non boot drive and booting off other medium in order to secure erase. That can be problematic if you don't have a desktop PC to do this with.

 

doesn't a simple quickformat with the win7 cd trim everything down, and thus erasing everything into a non-recoverable state?

 

OP why don't you download KillDisk Free and create a bootdisk either on a CD disc or USB drive. You can then write zeros to all tracks and sectors.

Active@ Kill Disk. Hard Drives Eraser. Free Download.

 

Not the same thing as a secure erase on an SSD.

 

Intel secure erase didn't work even with the ssd as a secondary drive. I just couldn't get past the ata security disabling part.

I tried kill disk as well and that put the disk in 0% health...... don't want to risk sending the ssd back in that state and risk not getting a proper refund.

the linux route worked like a charm and put the ssd back to 100% health and reset the power cycle.

 

If you just want to erase personal data, you could just delete it and then shred the free space with an app like file shredder.

 

TRIM only say 'this block is no longer needed'. whether the SSD would do an erase is entirely up to it.

Though a long format(really writing to every sector) would ensure that every visible sector is written with new data. Leaving at most the 7% OP possibly holding old data. And why I said, unless you are Bin Laden, is good enough. Well

 

I had the same issue with my Intel X25m 160gb, when i switched laptops i wanted to SE it before reinstalling, but even with my desktop i couldnt unlock it, every time i follow intels suggestions of unpluging it my desktop blue screened, i tried multiple times on different ports, etc, with no success, i just gave up and just install it over, and working great, but good to know the linux way works, maybe in the future ill do it.

 

The Linux Way only works if your distro supports sleep/resume on your hardware (Ubuntu would not wake up on mine, I ended up having to power cycle). Otherwise, you're still stuck with the unplug/replug method, even with Linux.

 

With an ASUS G71Gx I only had to restore its BIOS to the default values to get the "unfrozen" state.
With my current HP Elitebook 8530w I first installed the SSD in an external eSATA enclosure, connect it to the eSATA port and SE it with Parted Magic with the Terminal application.
Now I do it with Ubuntu 10.10 and sleep/resume to get to the unfrozen state. The only issue I have, after resume the screen brightness is reduced to about the half.
I tried to do it the same way with Ubunto 11.04 but my notebook didn't resume anymore. So I'll stay with Ubuntu 10.10 booted from an USB stick.

 

This was an incredible pain in the butt to do on my 160GB x25m. On the one hand, I don't even think the secure erase nonsense is really that necessary. If it was, I'd think Intel would put out a better way to do it than the unreliable tool they put out.

As far as doing the "power cycle" method (unplugging the power portion of your SSD while running the Intel Toolkit), your system needs to be in IDE mode and not AHCI mode. This drove me insane, because of course, nobody frickin tells you. But then if you just set your BIOS to IDE or AHCI, you'll end up in an infinite restart/reboot loop. So, you have to look to switch your registry settings, too.

This is all with my desktop. If you have a laptop and you're trying to do this, definitely try something other than Intel's app. Secure Erase 3.x is reported to work and version 4.0 is reported to not work. This all seems a bit crazy.

I'm willing to bet by just clearing all partitions and just overprovisioning (leave an unused partition) Windows 7 will just take care of everything.