How to Secure Erase SSD when NOT the primary drive.

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Toddskins

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Feb 14, 2012
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Mostly out of curiosity, I've been researching for an hour, read numerous "expert" posts, on securely erasing an SSD, but not a single one of them addressed the issue for an SSD as a secondary drive.

I happen to have Samsung 840 Evo with Magician software running. If I took another 840 Evo drive and hooked it up to my Windows 7 Pro desktop, would the Magician software recognize and allow the Secure Erase to be done on the secondary drive from within Windows?

Then too, even if you wanted to Securely Erase your SSD which is your C-Drive, would it still not be easier, if you have a 2nd PC also running the Magician software, to take the SSD and hook it up as a secondary drive, and do Secure Erase on it from the other computer?

Lastly, (and none of the experts wrote about this because they were too busy explaining how to let the Magician software create a boot disk in order to use Secure Erase), can one securely erase a secondary SSD drive without using Magician software? If so, what command within the Windows 7 Operating System would be sufficient to achieve the same result?

Thanks to anybody who answers.
 
Solution
Dereck47


Formatting an SSD and Secure Erasing it are two different things.
A Secure Erase factory resets any SSD. After the SE a SSD is in a blank, fresh-out-of-the-box condition.
So after you SE the SSD you would then have to format it before you can use it.




Yes.


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Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

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Sep 23, 2012
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There is no 'primary' drive in modern systems, merely the one you are currently booted off. I would not recommend erasing any drive while booted into a normal desktop OS; there's too much chance of erasing the wrong disk.

I would normally recommend hdparm in linux. I don't think there's any built in command to do an ATA Secure Erase in Windows.
 
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Jonas Magnusson

Jonas Magnusson

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Nov 7, 2014
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If you mean using the easiest way to format it or whatever you mean with "secure erase"
----
you should open your windows explorer>
find the SSD>
Right click on it with the mouse>
select format>
select new or old name>
select fast or slow format>
DONE!!
 
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Dereck47

Dereck47

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Jan 20, 2011
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Formatting an SSD and Secure Erasing it are two different things.
A Secure Erase factory resets any SSD. After the SE a SSD is in a blank, fresh-out-of-the-box condition.
So after you SE the SSD you would then have to format it before you can use it.




Yes.




I'm pretty sure that's the only way it can be done. Samsung Magician is run from your C Drive. I highly doubt that it would allow a SE of C Drive. Your system would no longer function after the SE command is sent.

So if you took the C drive from PC #1 and connected it to PC #2, it would not be C Drive in PC #2, Windows would automatically assign it another drive letter; so you would be able to SE it with no problems.




Yes, you can SE any SSD using Parted Magic. Parted Magic is a bootable Linux distribution.
You burn a Parted Magic .iso file to a USB thumb drive, boot to the USB drive, and when you get to the desktop you double-click icon labeled "Erase Disk".
 
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