• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Zero fill SSD with command prompt

W

wandplus

Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2020
Messages
570
If I wanted to type in "format D: /fs:NTFS/P:1" in the command prompt to write x and o on my SSD, I know how to do it from another drive but what if you only have one SSD and it has Windows on it? Do I have to boot my computer into MS DOS?
 
It won't let you nuke the drive you booted Windows from, one of the reasons being the swap file, dump file, hibernation, etc.
You need to get yourself a boot CD or thumbdrive that has a "Live" Windows on it. I know one of those was called Windows-to-go.
 
I decided to place the drive alone in a machine then use a Windows install disk to format the drive. Later I can install the drive in another machine (with another drive that has Windows installed) and then I can use the command to wipe the drive.
 
A write of 0 does not overwrite everything on an SSD. A full write also reduces live span.
This is different to mechanical disks.

This is why there is a "secure erase" function, either by manufacturer tools or for ex via parted magic,(starts from an USB stick)
https://partedmagic.com/secure-erase/

Another option can be offered with encrypted disks where a key delete makes data non accessable.
 
Last edited:
For a secure delete I would boot a USB stick with Linux or FreeBSD and splatter /dev/random over the disk with dd.
 
Regular diskpart clean is fine unless you are scared somebody is going to use an electron microscope to try to recover data.

If you want to waste write cycles, you can do a Clean All.

Regular built-in garbage cleanup / Trim resets cells to 0 automatically after files are deleted. It is done mainly for performance reasons but has the added benefit of being secure.

If you are really worried about something that matters not one bit, go ahead and put full disk encryption on the drive before wiping it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top