It's not, nowadays. All the data is encrypted, likely twice (once internally in the SSD's controller where you don't even see it, and once in the filesystem). Throw away the encryption key and you hold a container of random noise. The SSD 'secure wipe' commands just delete the internal key and there's no way to recover the contents any more.
Theo
I was thinking of the case where old PCS are swapped out for new. Current practice is to crush the drives and send the old PCS to a refurber for new drives and on selling etc. My point was that if the drives ARE working OK they CAN be cleaned ]
I have been meaning to come back and thank everybody for the input, apologies for the delay but thank you all :-)
The laptop now boots up faster than before so the format/reinstall seems to have done it a lot of good. Sadly it is now proving difficult to charge. A while back while hoovering, my beats as it sweeps as it cleans got hold of the charging cable and wrenched it so hard the jack plug bent. I got a new charger but it seems the socket is going home now so it may be destined for the great window in the sky.
Incidentally I have another unreadable WD blue (500 GB) and a Crucial BX
2TB which seem dodgy. When you remove and replace a partition and Mini Tool Partition Wizard slows to a crawl at 80% then takes a few minutes to update the partition information it seems a good indicator of a problem.Thanks again.
Have you tried running software to read the SMART data? I use Crystal Disk Info. That or something like it will tell you all about error rates, faults, temperatures, hours, etc.
I haven't yet on these two but will. The previous WD Blue that failed returned all zeros in the SMART data, now in Czechoslovakia for replacement!
Gosh do you have a time machine?
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required