
However, solid-state drives use wear-leveling algorithms that evenly distribute data among SSD blocks, which means that data is constantly moved around on the drive so the blocks will be worn at an equal rate. To securely erase data, hard disk drives fill the occupied space on the drive with a file consisting of zeroes or execute multiple writes of different characters.
#HOW TO CANCEL TARGET DISK MODE PASSWORD#
In this case, the password is set to NULL. Set a security password that will be used to erase the disk.Locate the “logical name” of the target disk and replace /dev/sdX in the commands below with that name. This will display details of all connected disks, including the “ logical name” of each disk. List all connected disks with the following command:.After the command has been issued, tap the power button to wake your computer and continue to the next step. To “un-freeze” a disk we can simply put the computer to sleep for a moment with the following command. SSD drives are locked down with a “security freeze” set by BIOS at boot.SystemRescueCD will boot to a shell prompt.From the options that appear, select “UEFI with Secure Boot disabled”. On Dell systems, you may need to temporarily disable “Secure Boot”.To disable Secure Boot, tap F12 at boot, then select the “Change Boot Mode Setting”.Boot to SystemRescueCD on the machine you’d like to securely erase.In testing, disks connected via a USB dock have also worked. This guide assumes an IDE, SATA, or PCIe connected disk.The default options should work, click the “Erase” button to wipe the container and securely sanitize the disk.When the physical disk has been selected, click the “Erase” button. In this particular example, the Physical disk is “Seagate Expansion Media”. To securely sanitize data on the disk, the entire container must be deleted. To delete the container, select the Physical disk from the Sidebar.Container disk3 = Logical container disk.Seagate Expansion Media = Physical disk.

It is important to understand that simply reformatting the encrypted Volume is not enough. After confirming the disk is encrypted, the disk can be reformatted.

If the machine does not have a removable hard drive, ETS recommends encrypting the disk first, and then proceeding with this guide.
