Wipeout - Fast, secure, interactive disk erase utility

This utility quickly and securely erases a device (hard drive) that implements the ATA Secure Erase capablity.

Features include:

• Automatic discovery of device to erase.
• Verifies device supports ATA Secure Erase feature.
• Interactive confirmation of erase.
• Read-back after erase to verify successful wipe.
• Fast. (My test 240GB SSD completes in less than a minute.)

Information on the ATA Secure Erase feature here: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

Latest version of this utility here: https://github.com/courtney-rosenthal/wipeout

Instructions

• Initially device (hard drive) is disconnected from the system.
• Start wipeout with root privileges.
• Connect the hard drive to the system.
• Wait a few seconds for the device to be recognized.
• When propmpted, confirm the erase.

Example

Here is an example run:

$ sudo ./wipeout.rb

Searching ... connect drive now .......... done!
Detected device = /dev/sdc
  Model Number: INTEL SSDSC2CW240A3
  Estimated erase time: 4min

Current partition table:
  Disk /dev/sdc: 223.57 GiB, 240057409536 bytes, 468862128 sectors
  Disk model: DSC2CW240A3     
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: dos
  Disk identifier: 0x997b5757
  
  Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
  /dev/sdc1        2048 468862127 468860080 223.6G 83 Linux

THIS DEVICE IS ABOUT TO BE COMPLETELY ERASED !!!
Proceed to erase /dev/sdc? (yes/no) : yes

+ hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass secretPassword /dev/sdc
security_password: "secretPassword"

/dev/sdc:
Issuing SECURITY_SET_PASS command, password="secretPassword", user=user, mode=high
+ hdparm --user-master u --security-erase secretPassword /dev/sdc
security_password: "secretPassword"

/dev/sdc:
 Issuing SECURITY_ERASE command, password="secretPassword", user=user
Wipe command has completed.

Confirming wipe was successful ... stand by ~30 seconds ...
Wipe is successful!

Author

Courtney Rosenthal <cr@crosenthal.com>