Secure Erase SandForced-based SSD

[Burner27]

Ok, I am not new to SSDs but I am having an issue securing erasing my two Mushkin Callisto 60GB drives. HDDErase 4 says the drive is 'Frozen' and will not let me erase. I have looked around and only found that you can either 'hot plug' the drive (not a fan of that) while trying to use HDDErase or use Linux to do it.

Am I missing something or is there an easier way to do this?

Thank you.

 

[darckhart]

tried esata connecting it?

 

[Burner27]

tried esata connecting it?

Does that work? Have you tried it?

 

[Emulex]

bulk eraser for vcr tapes should nuke it - like totally dead dead dead

 

[Mark R]

When Windows boots (XP SP3, Vista or 7), it immediately 'freeze locks' any SATA drive that it detects before actually booting the OS.

When a drive is 'frozen locked', no secuity features on the drive can be activated or changed. If you send the drive a 'secure erase' command, the drive will ignore it. This is a security feature in Windows - It's designed so that a virus, worm or trojan cannot 'lock' the drive with a password.

The drive will automatically 'unfreeze' when the it is powered off - so if you *power off* the comp, and boot with a boot CD or USB stick, it should work.

However, there is another problem in that some PC BIOSs do the same thing for the same reason (so that a trojan masquerading as a boot CD can't hold drives to ransom). So, as soon as the system boots, the drives are 'frozen' and can't be secure erased. There *may* be an option in the BIOS to switch this function off (something like 'write protect hard drive' or 'virus protection').

If you can't disable 'freeze locking' in the BIOS, then you have 2 options:
1. Try on a different computer with a different BIOS (try the oldest motherboard your have with SATA ports), and see if that one doesn't have automatic 'freeze locking'.

2. Hot-plug the drive into a SATA port after the comp has fully booted into DOS or linux. An eSATA port would be preferred as these are designed for hotswapping. Although, if you are careful, you can hot-swap onto normal SATA ports. Just take static-discharge precautions and make triple-sure that you are inserting the connector absolutely straight and the correct way round. I've done this loads, and had no problems. I've even plugged in hard drives and DVD/BD drives into internal SATA ports while Vista is running - they just get detected and given a drive letter as if they were USB drives.

 

[Yellowbeard]

Try Parted Magic.

 

[darckhart]

pmagic is great. but he mentioned he didn't want to boot a linux to do it so esata after getting in to the os was the only way i could think of getting around the bios lock. any luck OP?

 

[Yellowbeard]

I have looked around and only found that you can either 'hot plug' the drive (not a fan of that) while trying to use HDDErase or use Linux to do it.

pmagic is great. but he mentioned he didn't want to boot a linux to do it so esata after getting in to the os was the only way i could think of getting around the bios lock. any luck OP?

I understood him to say he did not want to hot swap. I did not read it as he did not want to use Linux.

Hot plugging is not an issue. These drives are made to be hot swap compatible so you are not going to damage it.

 

[Burner27]

I am just trying to figure out how to use parted magic. I am not opposed to using Linux.

I have each of the SF-based drive in a "removable drive bay' made for 2.5" drives. if these drives are hot swap capable then how would HDDErase recognize it? What would be the process of hot swapping + HDDerase?

 

[Yellowbeard]

I don't use HDDErase. I have tried it in the past and I greatly prefer the look and feel of Parted Magic.

Parted Magic; boot to the OS, go to system tools, click Erase HD and say yes about 3 times and it's done.

 

[Burner27]

Let me give you some back history.....

I purchased one Mushkin Callisto Deluxe 60GB drive and I benchmarked it using CDM and ATTO. Numbers were on par with everyone else's.

I bought another one last week because I think the lone one that I had already wanted a friend--hehehe.

Anyways, when i benchmarked that one using ATTO, it came out exactly the same as the first one in terms of numbers. When i used CDM, the write numbers on the 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (Queue Depth=32) were all significantly lower. I tried switching cables and ports but the second Callisto benchmarked the same. So I was going to try and secure-erase it to see if that resolved the issue.

Am I just being too picky? I mean it is only one app.

 

[Burner27]

Thanks Yellowbeard. Do i need to set the controller to legacy IDE mode? Do the drives need to be on the first 4 SATA ports off of the ICH10R?

 

[Burner27]

I just bench marked the two drives after secure erasing them and they seem to have the same performance.....


I didn't get any confirmation that the drives were 'done' when secure erasing them with Parted Magic. Should I have received a window or something?

 

[darckhart]

if you like seeing a status window afterward, you can do it all command line. here's a good guide: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

when the ssd is blank, it will perform its best (ie, when you first purchased it)

secure erase just tells your OS that all blocks are free to be written on.....

 

[Burner27]

So why the discrepency in performance from CDM and ATTO?

 

[Yellowbeard]

The 2 tests use different types of data to test. The numbers from each don't compare.

 

[Burner27]

Well each test shows the drives benching similarly, so i believe the secure-erase corrected my issues.

Thanks Yellowbeard and all for their advice.