I have a laptop I’m wanting to sell but I need to wipe the SSD, I only have experience wiping hard drives by overwriting the data, but after looking into it, it seems that SSD’s cannot be cleaned in the same way. I’m confused on what to do and just need some help. Is there a specific tool I can use? I downloaded ubuntu onto a flashdrive and booted it live from my laptop and tried to use hdparm to wipe the drive but I couldn’t figure it out. I’m not very knowledgeable as I’m sure you can tell, any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

  • Sopel97@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Deleting a parition in windows doesn’t trigger TRIM. Best you can do is secure erase, if available. Otherwise you zero-fill.

    but after looking into it, it seems that SSD’s cannot be cleaned in the same way

    what makes you think so?

    • DarkMetro888@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I heard that you cannot simply overwrite and SSD the same way you can a hard drive. Erasing data needs to be done differently, that’s all.

      • Muted-One-1388@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        For me you can zero-fill an SSD.

        With hard drive you need to do multiple pass, that’s not the case in SSD.
        zero-fill one pass is good enought for security with basic forensic tool.

        • Sopel97@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          With hard drive you need to do multiple pass

          if I see this myth one more time…

  • theawesomeone646@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    It will never be completely unrecoverable unless destroyed. You can get it pretty damn close by wiping partitions.

  • wessty1984@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Not sure how healthy it is for SSDs but I used to use cipher /w:C: in a command prompt or powershell where C was the drive letter. It would overwrite free space with 0s, 1s, then random I believe if I’m remembering right

  • ALaggingPotato@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    If you aren’t familiar with linux, ubuntu won’t help you much.

    Download the Windows installer instead, simply delete all partitions from the drive, thats what a wipe is.

  • 70XI@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Just format the ssd, and check the box “overwrite al the data(may take longer)” or the like. PS: Isnt that possible for ssd’s?

  • jabajaba87@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Buy yourself partedmagic… use rufus and create a bootable usb Drive… then use the secure erase command to wipe the ssd; will take you 10-15mins.