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    Trying to get HDDErase to work on my ThinkPad R500

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by mrjohn, Jun 15, 2009.

  1. mrjohn

    mrjohn Notebook Consultant

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    So, Lenovo are replacing my ThinkPad due to a high-pitched whine issue not fixed by a system board swap and I want to make sure the disk is wiped before sending it back to them (it's a full swap for a brand new machine).

    I'd normally use DBAN but stumbled upon HDDErase and it seemed like the better option, however, the drive is set to frozen and no bios settings I try seem to "unfreeze" it so I can run the wipe stage. Is there any special incantation I need to use or am I SOL if I want to use this method?

    Edit: Huzaa! That was easier than I thought. By exploting that SATA drives are somewhat hot-pluggable I simply booted the ThinkPad with the drive removed, then when I got to the Ultimate Boot CD menu I reinserted it and the drive was no longer frozen. Currently doing the wipe as we speak.

    2nd Edit: Thinking more about this, I'm at a loss as to why Lenovo would block this in the BIOS. These are business laptops and what to Businesses want? A way to ensure any sensitive data is wiped before recycling/selling on/returning etc.
     
    mrjohn, Jun 15, 2009
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