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Windows 8 "Fully clean the drive" effective for SSDs?
Windows 8.x has the option to Reset the operating system and "Fully clean the drive", presumably doing this by overwriting all parts of the drives in the computer. Does this work reliably for SSDs in Dell computers? The 'net is full of warnings that merely overwriting block-level data is not sufficient with SSDs due to the nature of they way data gets stored on the medium, and that a special ATA Secure Erase command needs to be issued (and supported by the drive manufacturer) to be completely reliable. Does Dell have any advisory on this? And no, I'm not talking about securely wiping my personal photos off of my home computer, but rather in an enterprise environment.
vibber
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November 24th, 2014 05:00
Appreciate the effort, but that does not really address my question. I am not talking about malware, but rather how to certifiably remove all data from an SSD drive.
Philip_Yip
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November 24th, 2014 05:00
I usually use DBAN for this purpose:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/securely-wipe-your-hard-drive-with-dariks-boot-and-nuke-dban/
I have done this on a few SSDs.
speedstep
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November 24th, 2014 05:00
There is no residual issue with removing a partition and reformatting. The issue is malware resident in memory that writes itself to the partition when you reformat.If you are worried get a live Linux flash drive and boot from that and delete the partition. Then shut down.
Then reboot the live Linux again and make sure the partition is gone then repartition and quick format FAT or NTFS and shutdown.
Then boot windows CLEAN Media and redo partition and format.
Revisiting bad sites will cause immediate re-infection so the first step is to disconnect and turn your router off while you do this.