Windows 10: Secure SSD formatting

Hi,

I've just registered to tenforums to ask you for help with an appropriate way of formatting an SSD drive in order to prepare it for installing Windows on a second machine.

I've watched numerous videos on YT and read "tons" of articles and I'm still very confused what method or program to use. For years I was using DBAN with my HDDs but the author states it clearly that " it cannot detect or erase SSDs".

From what I understand SSDs are structured in a different way than HDDs that's way traditional ways of erasing their contents might be harmful (e.g. decrease their durability). By traditional I mean using "quick / full formatting" with Windows built-in tools and by formatting I mean overwritting the disk with 0's or 1's and preparing it to be readable by the system.

I'm not that knowledgeable about SSD disks and wouldn't like to harm them by doing something wrong.

What methods are you using?

:)

 

How To Format A Write Protected Flash Memory ?

¿You already tried this one?...

Run CMD


1. diskpart
2. list disk

Then in the 3º step, put the correct number of disk in the list for the usb flash (if it's listed in disk 3, then you'll have to write select disk 3).

2. select disk #
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

with that commands you will format the flash drive in fat32, if you have a large drive you can select also "format fs=ntfs" in step 7.

good luck!

 

Formatting an SSD without using Quick Format Option


This process will degrade the performance of your SSD. Unlike hard drives where new information is written directly over old information with no decline in speed. SSD's are blazingly fast when writing to empty NAND. However if there is no empty NAND available the SSD process changes to a two-step approach where the NAND has to be "cleaned" and then written to. This slows down the SSD considerably. (The trim command under the windows optimize function essentially identifies the old, not needed, information and assists the SSD in pre-cleaning the NAND's so that the SSD can operate at full speed).
The only way to completely clean SSD is through a process known as secure erase. It essentially provides a blank SSD to write on. Formatting is nothing like that and a quick format essentially clears the record of the information that is written on an SSD so that Windows can treat it like a blank SSD, but the SSD still has to go through the two-step process. The NAND's are still full of old information and are effectively cleaned during periods of non-activity. A full format on the other hand will effectively write on every single NAND completely filling the SSD. If you want to start off with a clean fast SSD, use the manufacturers software and/or other generic software designed to secure erase the SSD.

 

Securely erasing old SSD - Ubuntu

Very inexperienced with Linux and have been playing around lately with Ubuntu 17.10 successfully recovering data from a bad HDD, quite impressed by it also.

First question is. I have an old OCZ Vertex 3 120GB that has been lying around forever and want to wipe it to factory settings and install Ubuntu on it (so I don't need to run Windows side by side on my current OS drive). I'm assuming the easiest way to do this is to do the following?

• Boot Ubuntu from USB installer
• Select 'Try Ubuntu before you install it'
• Open the Terminal and
• Use the Command-line to Simple Secure Erase i.e. hdparm --security-erase PASS /dev/sdX

My second question is, if the above will work do I then need to format the entire SSD in ext4 or does the installer by default format/partition the SSD when 'Erase disk and install Ubuntu' is selected?