I have been running Linux for over 20 years, since before I had Win95. You can get Linux based "Parted Magic" to do the Secure Erase with minimal wear, but it now costs $4.99 instead of being free. My old Intel 80 GB SSD either came with such a program on small CD or I downloaded it. oceanwpbreadcrumb333 hovercolor333 Security Erase efficacy SE is the process of erasing all or part of a storage device so that the data it contained is difficult or impossible to recover. There is an ATA Secure Erase command that can erase all blocks at once with minimal wear, but not sure how you can do that without a program. Trying to do something like write all zeros to the SSD may not do that and can also result in excessive wear leveling. TRIM in Win7 or newer can clear blocks automatically as you delete files or programs. And if the block is not erased, it has to erase the block before it can write to it, slowing it up some. Originally posted by MaddDoktor Linux:SSD's internally work somewhat different than a mechnical hard drive in that they cannot randomly change individual bits, they do it a block at a time. All of the data will be lost without recovery options. By doing this, you can increase the performance of SSDs for future use. KillDisk is able use SATA Secure Erase feature and perform fast unrecoverable erasure.
If I create a Ubuntu bootable USB stick and run Linux from it, is there an easy way to wipe SSDs within that OS without fully installing Linux on that PC? I'm not too tech-savvy on Linux operating systems, so help will be appreciated. Most of Solid State Drives (SSD) support Secure Erase for the low-level purging of all memory blocks on the media. I've seen where disk drives can be wiped using CCleaner, but I don't want to go through the trouble of reinstalling that drive into my newer PC since I already put the drive into the old PC.
Older folks will be using that PC and I will not be the primary user of it.
Before I install Windows 8.1 on it, I need to securely wipe the entire drive clean, removing all traces of my personal data from it.
And no, I'm not upgrading it to Windows 10 because I tried upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and that PC did not like it. I need to install it on an older Windows 7 PC and put Windows 8.1 on it. I have an older Intel SSD which has an old Windows 8.1 / Windows 10 dual-boot setup which I'm not using on my main PC any longer (I installed Windows 10 on a newer SSD).