Alternative to Secure Erase

[RGadd]

I am moving my Intel 240GB series 530 SSD from one computer to another. I need to partition it differently. I tried to secure erase using the toolbox but it is security frozen and many attempts to power cycle have not unfrozen it - I read that others have had the same experience. Therefore I'm looking for a possible workaround.

The only thing I can think of is making one huge NTFS partition, filling it with data (I have an exactly 4GB file I can copy many times) then deleting all files and then doing a trim from the toolbox. Is this a good idea or is there another method?

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Thank you for posting your inquiry.

Have you considered backing up you data and use Diskpart to clean your Intel® SSD?

You just need to open up a command prompt window within Windows* when booting from another drive; or boot from the Windows* installer CD, allow it to load the files, and get to the part where it allows you to choose drives/partitions. At this part press Shift-F10 this will load a DOS environment and type the following and hit enter after every line:

• Diskpart (it will display information in regards to the tool)
• list disk (it will show a list of your available disks)
• select disk # (replace the "# " with the number representing the drive you wish to clean)
• clean all (after this it will stay at a blinking cursor during about 15 minutes for a 80GB drive)

[RGadd]

I've looked at the Diskpart utility as described by Microsoft and can't see where it says it will perform a secure erase. I don't just want to manage partitions - this will not return the SSD to it's clean factory state. Please explain further.

[Jose_H_Intel1]

This is a description of the command:

clean [all]

Use the clean command to remove partition or volume formatting from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors. By default, only the MBR or GPT partitioning information and any hidden sector information on MBR disks is overwritten. If you specify the all parameter, each and every sector can be zeroed, and all data that is contained on the drive can be deleted.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

You may also run a http://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/SSD_Secure_Erase Secure Erase under Linux*. There are some utilities available online that will allow you to create a bootable Linux* drive, such as this one: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

[RGadd]

I'm sorry perhaps I didn't explain sufficiently. I have no problem repartitioning. I want to secure erase in order to return the SSD to factory condition, i.e. so that there are no blocks with data in them that the garbage collection routine thinks is valid data. If I don't do this the performance will suffer. Diskpart talks about "zeroing sectors" without a proper explanation of what that means. If it means writing zeroes in all locations, this would have quite the opposite effect of erasing the blocks since zero is valid data not the same as an erased state. Of course you will know this, but I want to make it absolutely clear.

So the proper solution is to do a secure erase which erases all locations. The problem is that the design has made it impossible to do via the Intel toolbox because the SSD is in a security frozen state and no amount of hot-unplugging and plugging will release it.

The help files say that if this repeatedly fails to unfreeze the SSD, the Intel Toolbox cannot do this and they suggest finding an independent tool to do it. This is a cop-out and is in my opinion quite deplorable, Intel engineers should have found another way, but there's no sense in me ranting about it, I just want a solution. I asked a valid question in the original post which has not been addressed.

I appreciate that you didn't realise why I wanted a secure erase. Hopefully I have explained that now. Could you please revisit the original post and offer a solution.