topic Anyway to load SSD Toolbox to bootable medium? in Archive

Anyway to load SSD Toolbox to bootable medium?

idata — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:32:47 GMT

Hello,

It seems I have a dead 1.8" X-18 80GB ssd in my laptop. As the i.8" power interface is different, I can't connect it to my desktop to diag. I've tried a few utilities from Hirens BootCD, but no help.

The drive fails the HP BIOS hard drive test right away, and when I try installing windows, the setup recognizes the drive, and as soon as I start the install it says it is unable to partition the drive and gives me a Windows error code.

Thanks for any help!

Re: Anyway to load SSD Toolbox to bootable medium?

idata — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:07:15 GMT

EDIT: I must confess, i read 80GB as 8MB, thinking you were referring to the 8MB bug. still, if you have no reason for data recovery, the below should still help. cheers.

I don't know if there is a way, however, if your goal is to simply secure-erase, this is possible from a bootable linux cd, using 'hdparm'. I've used ubuntu 11.04 (although 11.10 is out now).

This guide is a generic overview of the process, not specific to ubuntu etc.: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/articles/a/t/a/ATA_Secure_Erase_936d.html https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/articles/a/t/a/ATA_Secure_Erase_936d.html

Two things worth mentioning:

if you are new to linux, you might not know the drive nomenclature, i.e. which device is your ssd. for a graphical way of checking, there is a utility called GParted included on ubuntu. It's purpose is different, but it will tell you what your drive is called for use in the steps above.

secondly, i found a lot of laptops bios security lock drives. so once booted, you verify that it is not reported as frozen. if it is, will need to follow the Step 1a resolution dot point 2: put the laptop to sleep then wake it up. then run the check to see it is reported as not frozen.

Hope this helps! Done it a good couple of hundred times from laptops without issue.

Re: Anyway to load SSD Toolbox to bootable medium?

idata — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:31:51 GMT

A little different for me as a Linux noob, but it seems to be working! Thanks a bunch! Learned a few things along the way, gonna just let Ubuntu install on there and give it a whirl.

The wiki forgot to mention though that you need to use the sudo when typing in the commands. Maybe that just goes without saying.