Question Help wiping old NAS drives

[hokieguy]

I've got 2 WD 3.5" hard drives that were removed from my Synology NAS and would like to wipe them before selling/giving away. I have done drive wipes in the past with utilities like DBAN but for some reason I am struggling now!

I have an external drive adaptor that connects to my laptop via USB. I can see the drive in Windows disk management - it shows as Disk 1 with 5 partitions: 3x Healthy (primary partition) and 3x Unallocated. These don't show up in Windows Explorer (no surprise) or Diskpart.

My plan was to create a bootable USB of DBAN but I cannot for the life of me get my laptop to boot the USB. I've tried changing BIOS boot options etc but no luck no matter what I try.

Have tried downloading the WD drive utility but it won't let me do anything with what it sees as an external USB drive.

 

[punkncat]

IIRC these are ext4. Disk Management should be giving you an option to format.

 

[USAFRet]

Full Format in Windows File Explorer should be all you need.
Then, delete whatever partitions are there in Disk Management. Leaving one blank space.

There will be no trace of you that anyone outside of maybe the NSA can find.

Nothing, nada.

 

[hokieguy]

OK, with Disk Management tool in Win, I am able to see the drive. I deleted the partitions (delete volume). Everything shows as one big unallocated space now, but only 1678GB - this is a 4TB drive.

What else do I need to do?

 

[USAFRet]

OK, with Disk Management tool in Win, I am able to see the drive. I deleted the partitions (delete volume). Everything shows as one big unallocated space now, but only 1678GB - this is a 4TB drive.

What else do I need to do?

Please show us the Disk Management window.

Upload your pics to imgur.com, post the link here.

 

[hokieguy]

https://imgur.com/a/AHXEvEA

View: https://imgur.com/a/AHXEvEA

https://imgur.com/a/NP6Kk8I

View: https://imgur.com/a/NP6Kk8I


I was able to format, but of course it only formatted the part that it could 'see' which is ~half of the actual drive capacity.

 

[USAFRet]

I was able to format, but of course it only formatted the part that it could 'see' which is ~half of the actual drive capacity.

Specific make/model of this drive?

 

[hokieguy]

Specific make/model of this drive?

WD Red WD40EFRX

 

[SkyNetRising]

WD Red WD40EFRX

Can you show screenshot from Windows Storage Spaces?
(Control Panel/Storage Spaces)

Also screenshot from Crystal Disk Info and
Device Manager - disk drives and storage controllers sections expanded.

 

[USAFRet]

I would suspect this is a function of the external USB adapter, and sector size.

 

[hokieguy]

Not much to see in Storage Spaces

https://imgur.com/a/KLkMCy4

View: https://imgur.com/a/KLkMCy4


Crystal Disk

https://imgur.com/a/FPFmRx1

View: https://imgur.com/a/FPFmRx1

 

[punkncat]

If this drive was in a Synology NAS, they use a "Linux" format called EXT. I am not sure how, but you have to do some manner of process because Windows doesn't know what it is. Apologies that I cannot be of more help.

In this, does the Synology itself have an option to wipe or change formats?

 

[hokieguy]

I think the Synology does have a drive wipe option. I will need to look into that more.