How to Permanently Erase Data on SSDs, Hard Drives, and USBs

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When selling or disposing of an SSD, hard drive, or older laptop, it’s common practice to erase personal files. However, many individuals overlook the fact that these drives can still hold sensitive information that might be appealing to nosy individuals or malicious actors. Consider the following examples:

Browser history can provide insights into online behavior and potentially expose banking information.
Archived emails can contain crucial details about business dealings and subscriptions to streaming platforms, including periods when the owner is likely absent from home.
FTP applications like Filezilla can store login credentials, granting access to corporate FTP servers.
Browser password managers can facilitate access to all manner of accounts and services.

Why Complete Drive Erasure is Essential

Operating systems and applications often conceal personal data in various corners of the file system and databases, such as the registry, making it virtually impossible for the average user to locate them. Thus, it’s crucial to completely wipe the drive before passing it on. The process will vary depending on the type of storage medium in question.

In most personal devices today, you will find SSDs. These drives are significantly faster than traditional hard disks and are also more durable. For SSDs, recovering deleted files is often quite challenging, if not impossible.

On the other hand, mechanical hard drives, which are primarily used in NAS devices and corporate storage, may be easier to recover data from due to their design, where capacity and cost efficiency take precedence over speed.

External drives and USB flash drives fall under different erasure guidelines than internal drives. Let’s begin by discussing internal SSDs.

Removing Data Partitions from an SSD

Right-click on a drive partition to easily format or permanently delete the data via Windows Disk Management.

Foundry

To begin, you should delete any data partition(s) such as D:, E:, F:, etc.

This can be conveniently accomplished through the Disk Management tool: right-click the Start button on your taskbar and select “Disk Management.” Alternatively, you can type

diskmgmt

into the taskbar’s search field. Right-click the partition you wish to erase and choose “Format.”

In the dialog that appears, uncheck the box next to “Perform quick format”—this action will completely remove the files rather than simply deleting their entries in the Master File Table (MFT). Proceed by clicking “OK.”

Removing the System Partition via Bootable Media

Erasing the system partition (typically C:) is more complex since Windows cannot delete itself. You’ll need a bootable installation medium to perform this task.

If you have a Windows installation DVD, use that to boot your computer. If no DVD is available, you’ll need to utilize a bootable USB drive.

Foundry

The most straightforward method to create such a USB drive is by using the Media Creation Tool, available for free from Microsoft. After accepting the license agreement, click “Next,” and under “Choose which media to use,” select “USB flash drive.”

A USB drive with at least 8GB of storage is needed. Insert the drive and update the list of drives if necessary. After clicking “Next,” the tool will erase existing files on the drive and fill it with the Windows installation files.

Now, you have a bootable USB stick. Boot your computer from it and follow the prompts, clicking “Next > Install now” when the country settings appear. Choose “I don’t have a product key” and pick a version of Windows from the options provided.

Agree to the license terms, click “Next,” and select “Custom: Install Windows only.” Identify your system drive by its label and click “Delete.”

At this point, you can abort the installation by closing the window. The SSD is now entirely cleared, and drive C: is no longer visible, appearing only as unallocated space.

Due to the way SSDs operate, recovering data from them after deletion is extremely unlikely—largely thanks to the Trim function (which will be discussed in the next section).

Making SSDs and Hard Drives Non-Functional

If you decide not to pass an SSD or hard drive on to someone else, consider rendering it unusable through physical destruction. This guarantees that any data stored will be irretrievable.

Begin by removing the drive from the computer; this is typically straightforward even with laptops, which have a removable panel secured with a screw that allows access to the SSD. Usually, these drives are simply seated in a connector.

To destroy the drive, you can use a drill to create a hole in it or drive a strong nail through its casing. Caution is advised due to potential injury risks! One hole is usually sufficient to damage the drive beyond recovery.

Using the Trim Command for Secure Deletion

The Trim command is designed to optimize how SSDs manage written data, helping prolong their lifespan. This function is now standard across virtually all SATA SSDs.

Since Windows 7, Trim has been incorporated by default, usually requiring no extra action from the user, as it operates quietly in the background. When data is deleted from an SSD, Trim notifies the drive that certain storage spaces are now free.

The next time the system enters idle mode, the drive’s Active Garbage Collection will make these flagged regions available for erasure.

Permanently Destroying Data on Hard Drives

In contrast, traditional hard drives lack a Trim command, which allows for easier data recovery even after files have been deleted or the drive has been formatted. However, various methods can ensure that data is rendered permanently unreadable.

For data stored on partitions, tools like Ascomp Secure Eraser can be employed. This software does more than delete files; it overwrites the entire drive with random data.

To use Secure Eraser, select “Securely erase hard drive/partition” from the main interface, choose the appropriate drive in the subsequent window, and click the downward arrow next to “Start erasure process.” This will display a drop-down menu with several overwriting options available. A single overwrite is sufficient to safeguard the information, so opt for either “Low” or “Normal” and then initiate the deletion process by selecting “Start deletion.”

ASCOMP

When it comes to a system partition, you must take an alternative route due to Windows’ inability to remove itself. Boot from a live system using a CD/DVD or USB stick to delete the data on C:. Unlike with SSDs, it’s essential to overwrite the deleted areas on traditional hard drives to prevent recovery of the original information.

Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is a useful tool for this purpose. Download the relevant ISO file, and connect a USB stick to your computer (it only needs to be about 16MB in size).

Using Darik's Boot and Nuke — Using Darik’s Boot and Nuke allows for secure deletion and overwriting of existing drives.

IDG

This utility runs a minimal Linux system without any graphical interface. Once booted, you can enter the command

autonuke

to automatically erase and overwrite all data on your storage drives, or you can choose options through an interactive menu.

Secure Erasure of USB Drives

While USB drives and external hard drives are similar to SSDs, they don’t support Trim functions. Thus, it’s advisable to also format the files after deletion.

The aforementioned Ascomp Secure Eraser is effective for hard drives and SSDs, whereas Disk Wipe is a suitable option for USB drives.

Open Disk Wipe, select your USB drive, and click “Wipe Disk.” Initially, the wizard will prompt you to choose a file system; NTFS is usually the preferable choice. After clicking “Next,” you’ll need to choose how the data should be overwritten. Either “One Pass Zeros” or “One Pass Random” will work effectively.

In both scenarios, Disk Wipe will carry out an overwrite process on the data. Click “Next,” type in erase all in the provided field, hit “Finish,” and confirm the deletion. The program will format the drive first, followed by overwriting the individual memory cells.

Data Deletion on NAS Devices

NAS devices typically comprise multiple hard drives or SSDs, formatted with a Linux file system. For securely removing data, you should employ the operating system commands specific to the NAS.

Devices from Synology and Qnap both offer secure data deletion features. For Synology devices, access the “Storage Manager” from the main menu, select “HDD/SSD,” choose the drive you wish to modify, and click on “Action > Secure Erase.” You may need to unmount the drive from the storage pool beforehand.

For a Qnap device, navigate to the Control Panel, locate “System -> Backup/Restore -> Reset to factory settings,” and select “Restore factory settings & format all volumes.”

Alternatively, you can physically remove the drives from the NAS enclosure, install them in a Windows PC, format them as NTFS, and overwrite them according to the previously mentioned methods.

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