If the SSD had a previous OS installation and you want to remove all that data from the drive before using it for other purposes, then it would be recommended to do a Secure erase onto the SSD before re-purposing the drive.
Once the drive has been purged with secure erase, you can initialize the SSD again according to your needs.
- If you are installing an operating system on the drive to make it bootable again, you can format it during the installation of the operating system.
- If you plan to use it as a secondary drive, you could initialize and format the SSD from Windows Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management.
