Question Samsung Secure Erase not detecting SSDs on my main system

[Dave3000]

My main system:

Ryzen 5800x, Asus B550-F Strix (Wi-Fi) motherboard, 32GB DDR4-3200, GTX 1080 Ti, and Windows 10 Pro:

Issue:

Samsung Secure Erase utility does not detect any of my SSD's except my Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB that I sold off later. I tried my Samsung 850 EVO 2TB, Samsung 860 EVO 500GB, Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB, and Samsung 750 EVO 120GB. These four SSDs were not detectible by this utility on my main system. Also I noticed that Samsung Magician shows that the 850 EVO 2TB, 860 EVO 500GB, and the 750 EVO 120GB have AHCI deactivated when in fact I have AHCI enabled in the BIOS. I ended up having to secure erase my 750 EVO 120GB SSD and 860 EVO 500GB on my old system which I'm trying to get rid of. My old system is an i7-4930k with the Intel X79 chipset motherboard and no problems detecting the SSDs with that utility on that system. Is this a compatibility issue with the AMD B550 chipset and the Samsung Secure Erase utility? Also my Intel NUC mini-PC has no problem detecting my SSDs using the Samsung Secure Erase utility and both systems (old system and Intel NUC) show that AHCI is enabled in the Samsung Magician software. My BIOS is update to the latest version, 2407, for my motherboard. I have AHCI mode enabled in the BIOS. Connecting my 850 EVO SSD to the first SATA port (was connected to the 3rd SATA port previously) did not fix this issue with the drive not being detected by the Secure Erase Utility.

 

[UsandThem]

No issues using Magician on my Intel or AMD systems.

Did you do a clean install of Windows with your new build? You can try uninstalling Magician and making sure you are using the latest version when you reinstall it.

I did have an older system (Intel) several years back, and I remember Magician saying ACHI wasn't active on my 850 EVO, and I can't remember what I did to fix it. It's been 6-7 years now.

If I had to guess, it was something like I was using the Intel driver for the SSD instead of the default Windows one (which I do remember caused lower performance than the generic Windows one), or I had the disk formatted as MBR instead of GPT. It was just too long ago to remember for sure, but it's not specifically an issue with the AMD B550 chipset.

 

[Dave3000]

I'm using the standard Microsoft SATA AHCI driver in Windows 10. I'm using the latest Samsung Magician software to this date, 6.3.0. I recreated my Secure Erase flash drive and this time it showed my 2TB 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD, but still not detecting my 2TB Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD. I also have CSM enabled in the BIOS. My Windows 10 installation is fairly recent as I reinstalled Windows 10 a few weeks ago.

 

[Shmee]

I have found Samsung magician to be somewhat buggy at times. If you need to secure erase a drive, you could always do it under linux, like in parted magic. Or some motherboards have a utility to do so built in to their UEFI.

 

[Dave3000]

Would the Secure Erase utility in the BIOS just do a low-level format of the whole SSD? Don't these manufacturer provided secure erase utilities do something special that's specific to the SSD brand that the one in the BIOS and parted magic in LInux don't do? Also do you know if recent Intel chipsets like Z590 also have this issue with Samsung Magician where it see's the SSD as having AHCI deactivated even with it's enabled in the BIOS? I just did a fresh install of Windows 10 today, and installed the latest AMD chipset drivers, thinking that I maybe should have uninstalled the older chipset drivers in my previous Windows installation before updating the chipset drivers and maybe it would fix my issue with Samsung Magician, but still it did not fix that issue by installing the latest chipset drivers right after a fresh Windows 10 installation. I'm still using the default Microsoft SATA AHCI driver as show in the device manager.

 

[Shmee]

Afaik ATA secure erase is a standard command supported by most SSDs. Some also support the sanitize command. I am not sure about the issues on Samsung magician. I don't use it anymore.

 

[Dave3000]

Even with the latest BIOS on this day I'm still getting the issue that no supported SSD's in the Samsung Secure Erase utility on my Ryzen 5800x system. It's surely not a SSD issue since 2 weeks ago I bought a Samsung 980 Pro and the utility does not detect that SSD either on this system. Only on a random occasion it will detect a single NVMe SSD in the utility, like I mentioned earlier in regards to my 970 EVO Plus. I guess I have at least one good reason to still keep my i7-4930k system around as that system has no issues detecting my Samsung SATA SSD's with this Samsung Secure Erase utility. However, my i7-4930k system does not support NVME SSD's, at least not natively as it does not have an M.2 slot on the motherboard, therefore I would have to purchase an NVMe SSD PCI-E adapter to install an NVMe SSD on that system but it won't be bootable and can only be used just for storage from what I researched, but even then I'm not sure if the Samsung Secure Erase utility will supports Samsung NVMe SSD's that are installed on a PCI-E NVMe adapter or if it requires the NVMe drive to be installed directly on a motherboard's M.2 slot to work. If not, I still have my Intel NUC system, though right now I'm trying to sell it, that has no problem with the Samsung Secure Erase utility with Samsung NVMe SSD's.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My Asus ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming ATX mobo supports Secure Erase for both SATA and NVMe in BIOS. Have used both successfully.