encryption - How do I erase a Samsung Magician encrypted solid-state drive (SSD)?

07
2014-07
  • user857990

    I need to securely wipe a Samsung 840 solid-state drive (SSD) of a co-worker that's leaving the company. My colleague ran into a problem he can't find the answer to.

    The drive is encrypted with Samsung Magician software. We can't read the SSD in Linux, and Windows is unable to initialize it. The Magician software can erase the drive, but only if the password is present, which we don't have.

    Is there another way to erase or reformat the drive?

    • Answers
  • gowenfawr

    Consider destroying the drive and buying the co-worker a replacement if necessary.

    It's getting increasingly difficult to wipe drives. It's getting even more increasingly difficult to verify that a drive was wiped properly. Destruction is better (and if you pay someone like Iron Mountain to do it you get an audit trail) and drives are cheap to replace. Your colleague that's trying to figure this out, what's his hourly pay work out to? How much time does he need to spend on this before it was cheaper to buy a new drive?

    Shred, baby, shred.


    • Related Question

    ssd - How can I securely format a solid-state drive?
  • Shevek

    When selling / throwing away / giving away HDDs I always use DBAN to do a DoD wipe first.

    Is this still a valid thing to do on an SSD?

    Will it have an adverse effect on the SSD's lifespan?


    • Related Answers
  • Scott McClenning

    A DoD wipe with DBAN would be unnecessary ...

    SSD Security: Erase Solid State Drives Data

    While it is still not common sense to securely erase data on hard drives (read: Securely Erase Files) before computers or hard drives are sold or given away the matter becomes even more complicated where SSD – Solid State Drives – are concerned. The positive aspect of Solid State Drives is that data cannot be recovered if it is overwritten on the drive which means that only one pass would be needed to erase the data on the SSD. The bad news however is that not the operating system but the controller is specifying where the data is written on the SSD.

    This in effect means that all methods of overwriting free space are not sufficient for erasing the data securely on those drives. This also means as well that it is not possible to erase specific files securely on the SSD. Users who want to delete data securely on SSDs have therefor the following options at hand:

    * Encryption
* Format
* Filling the Drive

    Encryption is surely the best method of ensuring that the data on a SSD is secure as it cannot be accessed without decryption. Formatting the drive on the other hand is only reasonable if no data on that drive is needed anymore. It would otherwise require extensive backup and restoration procedures. Filling the drive with data might work as well as it would overwrite anything on the drive as well.

    Source

  • Shinrai

    After the fact, but things have changed a lot in the last 10 months or so - a lot of SSD manufacturers are including (or will be soon) a secure erase function in their optional software utilities that will do the single wipe pass for you properly from a controller level. (I know Intel already has this and it works great.)