Wipe Ailing SSD before Return of it?

[wutsinterweb]

Recently I came here for advice on a 2 year old SSD that croaked on me. It's under a 3 year warranty, it's a Team Group Drive. Is there a way to wipe it before returning to the manufacturer in Mint?

I've read horror stories of how people's drives end up in bad hands in places such as North Africa after people claiming warranty on them.

[wutsinterweb]

Should I try blkdiscard?

Also, how do I interpret the read/write data?

[wutsinterweb]

blkdiscard won't run on it.

[wutsinterweb]

I tried this, no go:

Code: Select all

sudo blkdiscard --secure -v -f  /dev/sde
blkdiscard: Operation forced, data will be lost!
blkdiscard: /dev/sde: BLKSECDISCARD ioctl failed: Operation not supported

And I tried this, no go also:

Code: Select all

~$ sudo hdparm --user-master u --security-erase PasSWorD /dev/sde
security_password: "PasSWorD"

/dev/sde:
 Issuing SECURITY_ERASE command, password="PasSWorD", user=user
ERASE_PREPARE: Invalid argument

[Pierre]

you could just use the Gparted program,
to erase all the partitions on that SSD,

then re-create an New Set of partitions - several, in fact,
before erasing them, as well.
and finally, create just the single partition, to be left on the drive.

[karlchen]

Hello, wutsinterweb.
Why does the title of this thread mention "DVD", although the question seems to be about "SSD" ?
Karl

[wutsinterweb]

OOPS! Brain fart. The drive is no longer seen on Gparted, but I did manage to wipe partitions and make them one time.

[ThaCrip]

'Secure Erase' is preferred as it's more of the proper way to wipe SSD/HDD, which you can do using hdparm etc.

because on my Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD it only takes maybe a couple of seconds to complete because from what I read it's not actually overwriting the entire drive but simply changing the drives internal encryption key to something else, so it's sort of a equivalent to wiping the drive. because doing a 'Secure Erase' on a regular HDD, takes hours depending on the size of it.

but when I do it on my Samsung SSD, or even HDD's for that matter, they have to be in a 'not frozen' state etc. which when using my old PC (motherboard is ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe which is a high end 2005 tech, which I had since March 2006) requires removing power from the drive while it's on at a certain point and then plugging it back in etc. there is a guide I used to do it as I can't recall the exact steps but it would not be too difficult for me to find as I think I wrote it down somewhere on the precise process to do.

but since the OP said his SSD was dying it might be difficult to do much with it in it's current state.

p.s. to use hdparm I suggest booting from a bootable Mint USB stick.