unable to Format SSD

[tom888]

Hi, i'm returning an SSD to Amazon but before it goes i'm trying to erase the OS and any information on it. However, i'm unable to format it via the computer management > disk management route (The 'Format' button is greyed out and i'm unable to interact with it, i think it's because it's set to active partition) and so i wonder how i can get around this. Thanks.

 

[Snipergod87]

If it is the disk you are booting from you will not be able to format it through Windows, you will need to boot of a a flash drive and use some wiping tools / secure erase it

 

[joex444]

Yes, you can't format the drive that is being used by the operating system.

How to get around it: Download a live ISO such as GParted and put it on a USB stick. Boot from the USB drive and you should be greeted with a Linux GUI that has GParted already installed. Run that and format your SSD from there.

Alternative: Download VeraCrypt and install it on your Windows drive. Provide it some password you've never used and let it encrypt your drive with AES. While this doesn't remove any information it does overwrite everything with encrypted data. If someone were to get this drive it would be essentially unrecoverable. Simply deleting the partitions doesn't delete the data, so the GParted route is much less secure (though recovery from GParted isn't exactly easy, it would still take someone knowledgeable to pull it off).

Some SSDs offer AES encryption built-in. If this is the case it's worth looking into whether you can have the drive encrypt itself with its built-in encryption. Often this amounts to setting a BIOS HDD password which alters the keys on the drive so that nothing is readable anymore. If this is the case, this is by far the fastest option. Another thing worth searching/researching here is Secure Erase.

 

[tom888]

I have a usb but it's not visible when i 'browse' with samsung magician when trying to prep a secure erase. Do i need to convert my usb's functionality some how?