Question Possible to erase data from SSD Drive not connected to my PC?

[Poptartsss88]

Greetings,
My knowledge of PC how-to's is humbly scant. I have an SSD that gave me the blue screen of death and nothing I tried fixed it. I've been using a different hard drive, but still have the SSD lying around. I want to get rid of it but want to make sure any and all data stored on it is deleted. Is there something I can buy that will let me connect the SSD drive through a usb chord or something that I can open it on my PC and delete it there? Like some kind of external drive formatter for internal drives? Thank you.

 

[USAFRet]

Greetings,
My knowledge of PC how-to's is humbly scant. I have an SSD that gave me the blue screen of death and nothing I tried fixed it. I've been using a different hard drive, but still have the SSD lying around. I want to get rid of it but want to make sure any and all data stored on it is deleted. Is there something I can buy that will let me connect the SSD drive through a usb chord or something that I can open it on my PC and delete it there? Like some kind of external drive formatter for internal drives? Thank you.

Is this a 2.5" format SSD?
Make/model, please.

But yes, there are external connectors or enclosures.

If, however, the drive is actually toast, those won't work either.

 

[Bob.B]

Greetings,
My knowledge of PC how-to's is humbly scant. I have an SSD that gave me the blue screen of death and nothing I tried fixed it. I've been using a different hard drive, but still have the SSD lying around. I want to get rid of it but want to make sure any and all data stored on it is deleted. Is there something I can buy that will let me connect the SSD drive through a usb chord or something that I can open it on my PC and delete it there? Like some kind of external drive formatter for internal drives? Thank you.

Just smash it.....give it a few good wacks with a hammer.

 

[USAFRet]

I want to get rid of it but

As in throw it away?

As above, hammer.

 

[Poptartsss88]

Yes it's a 2.5'' Western Digital Blue 500GB 3D NAND. Haha I am totally willing to try the hammer approach.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes it's a 2.5'' Western Digital Blue 500GB 3D NAND. Haha I am totally willing to try the hammer approach.

There is no try.

Only do.

 

[Ralston18]

Yes:

Hammer is fun but do wear eye protection......

 

[cgilley]

Over 20+ years, my kids learned to have fun when I told them to go hammer them . No hard drive leaves functional from me.

 

[emitfudd]

I completely destroyed an old HDD one time by putting it in a vise, hitting it with a hammer and drilling holes in it. By the time I was done it was in pieces.

 

[Poptartsss88]

lol. I like this place.

 

[CountMike]

Well, I had scheduled time at rifle range where I was range master and a pair of old HDDs. 3 guesses how it went with 15 shooters.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I completely destroyed an old HDD one time by putting it in a vise, hitting it with a hammer and drilling holes in it. By the time I was done it was in pieces.

That's my method for drive destruction too.
Drill right through the mother****** several times.

 

[Misgar]

hitting it with a hammer and drilling holes in it. By the time I was done it was in pieces.

When I removed the covers from some old hard disks and hit them with a hammer, I discovered some of the platters were made from glass. They broke into small jagged pieces with the first blow. Of course this doesn't apply to SSDs.
https://www.gilesorr.com/blog/glass-hd-platters.html

 

[SkyNetRising]

My knowledge of PC how-to's is humbly scant. I have an SSD that gave me the blue screen of death and nothing I tried fixed it.
I want to get rid of it but want to make sure any and all data stored on it is deleted.

We have no idea, what you tried and how adequate those actions were for diagnosing/fixing your drive.
It might be dead completely.
It might be completely fine, just with corrupted file system.

I'd try to diagnose it at least before going into physical destruction mode.

 

[Zerk2012]

Hammer for drives and used the street in front of my house one time for a keyboard that I had sent in for warranty work 3 times.

 

[Misgar]

Data recovery agencies sometimes unsolder all the memory chips on a corrupted SSD and attempt to read the data off each chip in an EPROM programmer. If you're very lucky, they might be able to reconstitute some of your data, even if the controller chip has died. It's a very expensive process.

If you are determined to trash your SSD's data, make sure to crush every chip on the PCB. Simply denting the metal case on a SATA SSD might not be enough.