Jump to content
IGNORED

how to wipe clean a previously used SSD?


Recommended Posts

The drive in question was used in a synology 218+ NAS and I have managed to erase and un-initialise one drive, so apparently there is nothing on it now!
The second drive has had 'the packages' erased but I cannot un-initialise this SSD!

I have tried to view them with a USB dock plugged into a laptop (with windows pro 10/64) but the drives remain UNRECOGNISED! (USB mass storage device). Despite the fact that synology DSM says they are 'clean'? I beg to differ because a brand new SSD would be recognised by windows 10 before it is partition/formatted! So there must be something still on there like formatting that is preventing them from being viewed?

Any links/apps./useful suggestions please?

PS: I belong to synology forums but I'm not allowed to post on there as a new member. So it's not much use! Seems very locked down and practically no way to contact the admin! Looking at the list of new members, no new members have been able to post since september 18? Odd?
Many Thanks!
Man
Link to comment
On 11/30/2018 at 3:58 PM, jtwrace said:

I had the same issue and it was determined by Samsung the drive was bad.  

no, the drive isn;t 'bad', because it still fires up under the Synology NAS that it was fitted in previously. But I thought I could wipe it enough for windows to recognise it?

Many thanks!

Link to comment

It's a joke about Hillary Clinton's response to the question of whether or not she "wiped" a server.  She replied "like with a cloth or something?" whereas she or a staff member or whoever in fact wiped the server using BleachBit.  So BleachBit, capitalizing on the free publicity, listed microfiber cloths for sale on their website as a joke.  Anywho, it was big in the news back in the day haha, and since then, whenever I hear or see anything about "wiping" drives/info, I always think of her :D 

 

Lame, I know, which is why I said I was sorry but couldn't help myself!

 

 

请教别人一次是5分钟的傻子,从不请教别人是一辈子的傻子

 

 

Link to comment
5 hours ago, Hugo9000 said:

It's a joke about Hillary Clinton's response to the question of whether or not she "wiped" a server.  She replied "like with a cloth or something?" whereas she or a staff member or whoever in fact wiped the server using BleachBit.  So BleachBit, capitalizing on the free publicity, listed microfiber cloths for sale on their website as a joke.  Anywho, it was big in the news back in the day haha, and since then, whenever I hear or see anything about "wiping" drives/info, I always think of her :D 

 

Lame, I know, which is why I said I was sorry but couldn't help myself!

 

 

no probs! ~ always like a bit of fun to relieve the stress of 'IT' (data loss etc.), thanks for humorously cheering me up!

Link to comment

@the_doc735

The Synology Forum location has changed, are you looking at the old site? The new site is: https://community.synology.com/

Do you have access to a Linux computer that you can attach your USB dock to? You may need to change the boot record partition when reformatting the drive, e.g., Master Boot Record partition. The Synology may have modified this to one that Windows cannot read. Had a similar problem on my Mac with a USB thumb drive.

 

Main System: [Synology DS216, Rpi-4b LMS (pCP)], Holo Audio Red, Ayre QX-5 Twenty, Ayre KX-5 Twenty, Ayre VX-5 Twenty, Revel Ultima Studio2, Iconoclast speaker cables & interconnects, RealTraps acoustic treatments

Living Room: Sonore ultraRendu, Ayre QB-9DSD, Simaudio MOON 340iX, B&W 802 Diamond

Link to comment
7 minutes ago, Axiom05 said:

@the_doc735

The Synology Forum location has changed, are you looking at the old site? The new site is: https://community.synology.com/

Do you have access to a Linux computer that you can attach your USB dock to? You may need to change the boot record partition when reformatting the drive, e.g., Master Boot Record partition. The Synology may have modified this to one that Windows cannot read. Had a similar problem on my Mac with a USB thumb drive.

 

yes i have been on that site and the old!

no access to a linux computer. How about a virtual linux PC inside my windows laptop?

Yes I have a small knowledge of the MBR partition and synology may be using Btrfs EXT4 , not FAT32/NTFS.

However I stumbled upon this: 

https://www.synology.com/en-uk/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/General/How_to_migrate_between_Synology_NAS_DSM_6_0_and_later

 

would this help me? 

 

also:

https://www.avforums.com/threads/how-to-wipe-clean-a-previously-used-ssd.2202740/

 

cheers!

Link to comment

Seems to me that if the format is the problem (quite likely), then you need to use a method to boot into Linux. I don't know how much Linux knowledge you have (mine is very limited) but I guess I would try creating a Linux thumb drive to boot off of and see if I could then access/reformat the drive. Seems like the AV forums has some useful help available. I wonder whether you could have reformatted the drive while it was still in the NAS and changed the format to something Windows friendly? I am assuming that you don't have access to a Mac computer either, sometimes a Mac will allow you to reformat the drive but you must make sure that you change the boot record partition to something that Windows will read. Good luck and sorry I can't be more help!

Main System: [Synology DS216, Rpi-4b LMS (pCP)], Holo Audio Red, Ayre QX-5 Twenty, Ayre KX-5 Twenty, Ayre VX-5 Twenty, Revel Ultima Studio2, Iconoclast speaker cables & interconnects, RealTraps acoustic treatments

Living Room: Sonore ultraRendu, Ayre QB-9DSD, Simaudio MOON 340iX, B&W 802 Diamond

Link to comment
2 hours ago, Axiom05 said:

Seems to me that if the format is the problem (quite likely), then you need to use a method to boot into Linux. I don't know how much Linux knowledge you have (mine is very limited) but I guess I would try creating a Linux thumb drive to boot off of and see if I could then access/reformat the drive. Seems like the AV forums has some useful help available. I wonder whether you could have reformatted the drive while it was still in the NAS and changed the format to something Windows friendly? I am assuming that you don't have access to a Mac computer either, sometimes a Mac will allow you to reformat the drive but you must make sure that you change the boot record partition to something that Windows will read. Good luck and sorry I can't be more help!

linux knowledge is limited. No MAC! (ever!) No the  NAS won't let me use windows format/partition methods. I would need the linux bootable thumb drive or maybe 'diskpart' command. Still to try both if synology migrate doesn't work.

Cheers, much appreciated.

Link to comment

have you tried connecting the drive to your PC and then using  "Windows Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management"

to delete the partitions on the drive? While you wont see an ext4 or linux boot partition assigned a drive letter in Windows file manager, Disk Management

should allow you to see/delete the partitions on the drive.

 

That should be all you need if the problem is removing a boot partition to allow disk reuse

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

Link to comment

Go to PCLinuxOS.com and create a bootable DVD or thumbdrive

Boot the CD and use Control Centerv- Local Discs to format the drive to format to whatever filesystem you chose.

I know it sounds scary but it is all GUI based - point and click usable.

Go to the forums and ask someone to walk you thru it.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/

When all done you might even dump Windoz

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, davide256 said:

have you tried connecting the drive to your PC and then using  "Windows Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management"

to delete the partitions on the drive? While you wont see an ext4 or linux boot partition assigned a drive letter in Windows file manager, Disk Management

should allow you to see/delete the partitions on the drive.

 

That should be all you need if the problem is removing a boot partition to allow disk reuse

No joy with disk management either, tried that a couple of days ago, but thanks anyway for suggesting, could have very well worked! ~ but no! LOL

Link to comment
48 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

http://www.eassos.com/blog/how-to-resize-ext4-linux-partition-without-data-loss-on-windows/

alternativly the net says you may access ext4 with AOMEI or mintool partition wizard

(in my logic you may alsp un-Initialise it if you could resize the disk/partition)

Cheers, Tom


 

don't know AOME/minitool? If I could un-initialise it  via the synology NAS I would do, but as it is the primary drive it won't let go! LOL. Its now synology owned forever more - LOL. I'm hoping this migration technique will do the job though! cheers!

Link to comment
35 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

Go to PCLinuxOS.com and create a bootable DVD or thumbdrive

Boot the CD and use Control Centerv- Local Discs to format the drive to format to whatever filesystem you chose.

I know it sounds scary but it is all GUI based - point and click usable.

Go to the forums and ask someone to walk you thru it.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/

When all done you might even dump Windoz

I think I can do that from what you have said here, no walk through this time (I hope?). Yes I may try this "the linux thumb drive trick" as the synology DSM is based on linux anyway. cheers! Happy Days! I'm always thinking of dumping windows these days - wink wink!

Link to comment
On 12/7/2018 at 12:16 AM, cjf said:

Sorry for the dumb question here but is it safe to assume you are trying to do this because you wish to keep/re-purpose this particular drive that is giving you problems?

 

If you are not trying to reuse this drive then may we can discuss ways of permanent/physical destruction instead at which point you can then just drop it in the garbage ?

yes - 're-purpose'.

I burned GPARTED to a CD. I was able to clear one of the SSD's completely but the other one did not recognise at all? So I used the cleared SSD in the 218+ and it took it straightaway and installed the full DSM 6.2.1. So, I thought the other SSD that was not recognised by Gparted might just go back in the 218+ to be used as the second drive in JBOD. It worked! Don't know why! ~ I also managed with GPARTED to recover 99% of a U3 Sandisk thumb drive and create an NTFS partition; the other 1% could not be recognised or accessed by GPARTED? So, I've got 7.45GB to play with as NTFS portable drive, the other 5GB are completely unknown to GPARTED and U3 is gone for good - thank god! U3 was decommissioned in 2007 anyway. Apparently, MS took over development and called it "startkey" but I guess that's gone now too?

Cheers!

Link to comment

The reason it's not being recognised by Windows is because its likely to be formatted as a Linux drive under the Synology OS, possibly as EXT3 or EXT4 formats and possibly encrypted. It's a similar issue I have experienced with Zyxel's drive, which has their own proprietary format for their NAS servers, which makes it very hard for them to be cloned should issues arise even with a standalone drive cloning dock. But it could also be your SSD could be in need of a firmware upgrade or maybe is not compatible with some drive dock electronics. Some cheaper SSDs apparently can never be used properly as normal HDD replacements (even with cloning) because they have a limited amount of cache headroom.

Link to comment
18 minutes ago, MiddlemanOne said:

The reason it's not being recognised by Windows is because its likely to be formatted as a Linux drive under the Synology OS, possibly as EXT3 or EXT4 formats and possibly encrypted. It's a similar issue I have experienced with Zyxel's drive, which has their own proprietary format for their NAS servers, which makes it very hard for them to be cloned should issues arise even with a standalone drive cloning dock. But it could also be your SSD could be in need of a firmware upgrade or maybe is not compatible with some drive dock electronics. Some cheaper SSDs apparently can never be used properly as normal HDD replacements (even with cloning) because they have a limited amount of cache headroom.

thanks, but as I said Both SSD's are now working in my 218+ NAS.

yes the drive was using synology O/S EXT4.   "BUT!" ~ the gparted app boots from a thumb drive/pen/stick (USB) and loads to a GUI. Has nothing to do with windows! The gparted app is Linux based and that is the environment you work/operate in with all manner of partitions. One of the partitions that gparted recognises is EXT4. Both my SSD's were in the NAS, so it is strange that one was recognised and the other one wasn't! I mean it's not like they came from different NAS/PC etc. OR were different make and model i.e. both same type (identical). Identical NAS's that came out of the same machine, at the same time, so why only one recognised by Gparted is a bit of a mystery?

Link to comment

Well you were fortunate your SSD was able to be recognised by the GParted software. I've had cases where I've placed a used 256GB M.2 SSD into a small USB case to be formatted, only for the drive to fail rendering it totally useless because of some quirk in the setup. I'm not sure what the issue around the GParted non-reading of the drive is, but it sounds like its possible something akin to what we get when you have two of the same named volumes in a Windows PC which are direct copies of each other - only one ever appears on the desktop despite the 2nd being fully connected and working.

Despite their supposed successes, SSDs are still likely to fail like any other electronic product. I've had more than a handful of SSDs fail (mainly 128GB types) because the drive just wasn't up to scratch when it came to proper usage (poor error correction in the electronics). If you want reliability, my go-to brand for SSDs is definitely Samsung.

Link to comment
11 hours ago, MiddlemanOne said:

Well you were fortunate your SSD was able to be recognised by the GParted software. I've had cases where I've placed a used 256GB M.2 SSD into a small USB case to be formatted, only for the drive to fail rendering it totally useless because of some quirk in the setup. I'm not sure what the issue around the GParted non-reading of the drive is, but it sounds like its possible something akin to what we get when you have two of the same named volumes in a Windows PC which are direct copies of each other - only one ever appears on the desktop despite the 2nd being fully connected and working.

Despite their supposed successes, SSDs are still likely to fail like any other electronic product. I've had more than a handful of SSDs fail (mainly 128GB types) because the drive just wasn't up to scratch when it came to proper usage (poor error correction in the electronics). If you want reliability, my go-to brand for SSDs is definitely Samsung.

m2, was it NVMe by any chance?

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

There are some tools for different OS that can run ATA "TRIM" command on the entire drive. This will tell the drive that all the storage blocks are truly unused. This is good starting point, because it also makes sure further wear leveling works correctly.

 

If the OS is/has not been telling the SSD properly with TRIM which blocks are unused, the drive will eventually believe all blocks are in use and contain essential data. This will slow down the drive and cause it to copy data (potentially unused) over to different portions of the drive to keep FLASH cell wearing even.

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...