MX Linux Forum

Can gparted on the liveusb not securely erase everything?

I mean.. if it held windows it is likely all NTFS. Format the whole dealie in ext4, one would have to put quite some effort in, I'd say, to get stuff back from that.

LU344928 wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2024 10:08 am Just a thought - wouldn't it be easier (and cheaper) to use a program like Parted Magic to securely erase the current drive? Then a bootable thumb drive can be created and away you go.

I think Parted Magic used to be freeware but the last time I looked it costs only $11.

https://partedmagic.com/nvme-secure-erase/

It depends on whether it may be necessary to prove (at a later date) that the drive has been rendered inaccessible by the current user of the machine. If the drive has been physically destroyed, you can produce the remnants and if the drive has been surrendered to the original owner you can produce the receipt for that transaction.

Yes, when proof is needed, definitely bring it back to where it came from and go from there.

j2mcgreg wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2024 10:21 am It depends on whether it may be necessary to prove (at a later date) that the drive has been rendered inaccessible by the current user of the machine. If the drive has been physically destroyed, you can produce the remnants and if the drive has been surrendered to the original owner you can produce the receipt for that transaction.

Basically the deal is : I can make it my personal computer only if old data is proved to be unrecoverable. I tried to explain that I could encrypt the whole thing and stuff but it seems like even I am not supposed to access the old data (some other people used this laptop before me).

Eadwine Rose wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2024 10:18 am Can gparted on the liveusb not securely erase everything?

I mean.. if it held windows it is likely all NTFS. Format the whole dealie in ext4, one would have to put quite some effort in, I'd say, to get stuff back from that.

Can it be that by simply formatting the whole SSD in ext4 the effect would be the same (the old data being unrecoverable because 1/ its NTFS partition was replaced with a ext4 one and 2/ the whole partition is populated either by linux system or really clean empty space) ?

@mixmax wrote:

Basically the deal is : I can make it my personal computer only if old data is proved to be unrecoverable. I tried to explain that I could encrypt the whole thing and stuff but it seems like even I am not supposed to access the old data (some other people used this laptop before me).

In that case I would remove the NVME in front of them ( after having disabled BitLocker and Fast Start Up) and then give it to them on the spot. Be sure to get a receipt.
Edited to add that it might be better all round to have them disable BitLocker, Fast Start Up, and remove the NVME before they surrender it to you, Get a receipt that shows these actions have taken place.

OK I'll go with that. As long as I can get back the rest (RAM and stuff) I'm fine. Thank you guys!

@mixmax

It depends on exactly how SURE you need to be about it being non-recoverable, and what type of data recovery threat you need to protect against. Non-volatile chip storage is kind of a beech in this regard. You can address the PHYSICAL space on a spinning disk to overwrite the data, but not on a chip. On NVM chips, it's up to the secret-sauce of its controller. For chips, you could write over all of the existing data, but file fragments, and maybe some complete files, might remain somewhere in the chips until the controller happens to write over the Actual physical space they are using.

One advantage of using pretty good disk encryption with SSDs is that lingering file traces would be encrypted and unreadable under such circumstances.

Some SSDs have erase utilities available from the manufacturer. How secure they Actually are would be a guess. So you have to ask yourself what the threat level is, and if its worth the money or effort to replace the SSD, or to try other things.

Good luck.

I'll follow your recommendations and j2mcgreg's on this one, I'll make a clean MX Install on a brand new SSD in replacement of the old one. In other words : I'll lancun Windows, disable bitlocker, fast start up and secure boot, turn off the beast, replace the NVME, turn on the laptop and boot from the live usb key then make an encrypted install. LEt's hope it will work....

Yet one last thing, though. As I said above, last time I did an SSD replacement, it ended with a double failure. First I failed at installing Linux on the new SSD, then after I put the first SSD back (with Win on it) I failed at using it normally (window wouldn't boot correctly and when it did, then it wouldn't work correctly). In the end of the day, nothing worked and I could use neither Windows (on the old SSD) nor Linux (on the new one).

Now I'm afraid that it might happen again. If for any reason there's something wrong with the new SSD, will I be able to go back to the old one before I try again with another SSD ?

Personally.. if you are physically removing the drive from the system and inserting a new one, I see no need to use encryption.