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I recently got to buy loads of old computer parts on the cheap, including some HDDs and an SSD with varying capacity. Since I have no idea what the former user did and what dangers there might lay in those drives I hesitate to connect them immediately to my Windows 10 Pc. Any idea how I can wipe the drives without risking getting anything funny over to my system? Also I have Windows, Linux Mint and MacOS, so I am very free on where to go from here, if there is a specific solution you'd recommend for Linux for example.

Thanks in advance and stay healthy y'all :)

Moab
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Deven
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    Better have a look at this for your SSD's>>>>>>https://superuser.com/questions/22238/how-to-securely-delete-files-stored-on-a-ssd – Moab Nov 05 '20 at 13:32
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    People seem to be suggesting full disk wipes which are overkill and will take a very long time. Personally I'd just plug the drive in via USB, boot into Linux and delete all the partitions on the suspect drive. Windows will then see it as an blank (unformatted) drive. – Richard Nov 05 '20 at 13:52

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I will recommend reformatting the drive.

However while not necessary, you can use disk wiper tools like Eraser or CCleaner. These tools will rewrite every sector of data with new data. Any virus hiding will be overwritten, but like said before reformatting should be enough.

But on the plus side, doing a full disk rewrite will make it very difficult for any one to recover any data that is on the hard drive. Even if you reformat the drive data can still be recover. And you can you encrypted backup to make you data safe.

Also don't do a full rewrite on SSD, it will not work property and you will use up more of the read/write cycles.

Wasif
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  • It seems to me that you're writing from the perspective of someone wanting to sell their disk, while OP has bought disks with unknown contents. While formatting is a good advice, it would be good to explain whether connecting an untrusted disk to a computer comes is risky and how to do it safely. – gronostaj Nov 05 '20 at 13:00
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Use DBAN for wiping disks. Has option for securely wiping traditional hard drives and quick zero-fill mode.

Madhubala
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  • Worth noting that, even with one pass and no verification, the DBAN zero-fill option isn't very quick. I recently ran it on a 6TB drive and it took 60 hours to erase. – Richard Nov 05 '20 at 13:28
  • @Richard Can you share what drive model it was? – gronostaj Nov 05 '20 at 14:54
  • @gronostaj It was a Western Digital WD60EFAX. The fact it was SMR might have had some bearing on the speed - but I've never found DBAN fast on any type of drive. – Richard Nov 06 '20 at 13:12
  • @Richard dd on a 750GB drive takes about 20 hours. ; DBAN is relatively faster than alternatives listed here : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Securely_wipe_disk ; you can see results of dd here : https://superuser.com/questions/262056/how-long-to-zero-a-drive-with-dd – Madhubala Nov 06 '20 at 16:34