Diagnosing and Erasing SSDs and eMMC - Parted magic Legacy and 3/26+ builds

They can be purchased here if you cannot salvage one: UGREEN USB to USB C Adapter & USB C to USB Adapter Combo 4-Pack.

Connect the drive using a USB adapter, or plug it directly into a free internal slot (SATA or M.2) on your motherboard.

Start Ubuntu and run sudo apt-get install nvme-cli on the live image.

NOTE: The device dev ID can be found in Disks, each machine will be different. After installing nvme-cli, run the following command: sudo nvme smart-log -H /dev/nvmeX (change X for the SSD ID). External SSDs may use /dev/sdbX, but same rule for probing it in CLI applies - just double check with externals.

Check the following data first: Percentage used, Data Written, Power on hours, Unsafe shutdown (less critical, but check!), Media errors.

Boot your system into a live Linux session. Locate the Disks application and select the SSD you want to test.

From the drop-down menu, select SMART Data and Self Tests. This will pull up the SMART data.

Locate the following SMART attributes: Power On Hours, Power Cycle Count, Reallocated sector count and wear leveling count.

Example of a unnessacarily overencrypted SSD's SMART data.

To run a SMART Extended Self-Test, left click Start Self-Test. Select Extended from the drop-down menu.

In the Attributes tab, locate the following SMART attributes: Available Spare (and Spare Threshold), Percentage used, Data Units (Written), Power Cycles, Power on hours, and Unsafe shutdown (less critical, but check!).

To access the NVMe logs, click on NVMe Errors.

To test the drive, select Perform Tests. Click Test type: and select Extended Self-Test.

In the event your drive adapter DOES NOT populate the data and shows this, you have to find a different adapter. However, the need for this can be verified in Terminal to make sure it is NOT a GUI issue with the following command: smartctl - H /dev/X (replace X with sdbX, X being the drive number if present).

If Terminal just says SMART Health Status: OK, the adapter you picked has issues in Parted Magic (likely due to a chipset blacklist). Pick another adapter as you're flying blind.

Select Disks from the desktop to open GSmartControl.

Select the hard disk you want to test. Click Attributes to read the SMART data.

Locate the following attributes: Reallocated Sector Count, Power On Time, Power Cycle Count and Wear Leveling Count.

In order to check the error logs, click Error Log. Any errors will be stored here. Some drives offer additional data, which can be accessed under Advanced.

Select the SSD needing to be erased (Verification is optional but recommended) and click Continue.

Click Continue and then the "I understand this is permanent" box, then Continue again. The erase will proceed.

Before erasing the machine, you must fill this out in it's entirety:

Toggle NIST Purge ON (100% verification required for NIST certified erasures), select your SSD, and open Cert Info to ensure the form is complete. In the "asset tag" box, enter the drive S/N and client-assigned asset tag—or use the motherboard S/N and SSD S/N as a fallback if DMI auto-detection fails.

Once all certificate info is filled out, click Continue, check "I understand this is permanent", and hit Start Erase.

When finished, download and save the erase logs and compliance certificate—which serves as your client's official Certificate of Sanitization/Destruction—and ensure they read SUCCESS to be compliant. Print and deliver these to the client with your intake form, and store the wiped drive in a labeled, dated, and sealed ESD bag.

If the client demands destruction of the drive, you must generate a Certficate of Destruction (CoD). Only do this after erasing the drive. Process not shown due to iFixit platform photo limits.

AHCI drives (M.2 SATA/2.5" drives/3.5" drives) When possible for security (and in the case of SSDs, reduced or mitigated drive wear), try to use the ATA Secure Erase option when possible, unless the drive has known bugs (see warning above).

If you can tolerate a little less security, Disk and Shred are faster then Nwipe, but at the expense of wipe security being compromised. It is fine for personal reuse but should not be used on a drive you are disposing of.

NVMe SSD Recomendation: When possible, use NVMe secure erase. This is instant because it destroys the encryption key on these drives so the data can no longer be read and does not need to zero out the entire drive.

Open Erase Disk and select Block Wiping (called External on very old builds). Choose either Disk or Shred (both do the same thing).

Select all "mmcblk" drives.

Note: Drives that cannot be wiped will throw an access error and close—this is a harmless nuisance error expected on older builds attempting to write to hardware-locked boot partitions—dismiss the error and let the main eMMC partition format.

Start the erase. This typically takes 20 to 25 minutes, though slow eMMC controllers may take up to 40 minutes.