Returning a drive for replacement...with data

My pc failed to boot up today, and its down to a dead SSD. i tried it in a few other pc's, and its not visible...dead.


So, im returning it to crucial for a replacment. no fuss. but... Crucial cannot confirm how they wipe any drives they receive.


They said they may fix and resell the device, and assure me it is any data is "securely wiped". Working in the IT industry i trust such a statement without backing as much as i trust any random telesales marketer that calls the office. i.e. i dont trust it at all.


Generally with a dead drive, it gets smashed, physically with a hammer. thats the only way I can be sure data cannot be retrieved from it, but i cannot smash my SSD, if i want to get it replaced.


I have customer info on my SSD that cannot be passed on due to NDA. even if the drive is dead, im sure there are methods to recover this data.


Anyone have any idea how crucial wipe drives?

What would you do in this situation?

 

You don't really have much of a choice tbh, if you want it replaced then you need to give it to them as-is if you're not able to wipe it yourself. But if it is really dead and too far gone i can't imagine them bothering to fix it up and resell it, rather a quick test and off into the scrap heap.

 

If you are unable to wipe that SSD drive then I sure would NOT send it to anyone if it has sensitive data on it. Take the loss and buy another. And use a hammer on the bad one. It's not worth being sued by some customer that has had his data stolen by your actions.

 

Ditto.

If the info is critical, consider it a cost of doing business.

 

Another question for the OP: Why are you putting sensitive data on a SSD Drive anyway? I thought the going wisdom is to load your operating system and programs on that drive, should be drive C: right? And the sensitive data or any data on a separate hard drive. Then nightly, or more often, back up your data to another hard drive that is external to your computer. We sure hope you did that.

 

SSD drives have increased in size and lowered in price to where they are the only drive in the system now for a lot of users. Its no biggie now to use one just like a normal HDD.

I don't think he is so worried about having a backup of the data, as to someone recovering sensitive stuff he had on the drive.

 

Would a hammer be enough to ensure that an SSD is fully destroyed? NAND packages are pretty small so even if the PCB is destroyed, it's entirely possible that one or more chips manages to survive completely intact...

Do you have full drive encryption on your SSD? If it's protected by TrueCrypt or Bitlocker or something, that should be more than enough.

 

You could just rip out each NAND chip and break it in half, or set them on fire...

Fire seems more fun.