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[BUG] Secure Deletion of Harddisk will hang

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ATIH Linux Recovery 64bit (UEFI) b5554

Scenario:
Western Digital Green 500 GB
ATIH Linux recovery environment 64bit (UEFI)
Secure deletion of a harddisk using german standard preset

Symptoms:
Deletion of a harddisk using the german standard will hang at the end (Estimated Time 8 seconds).
Aborting the process will end up with a harddisk that still has partition table (not sure if data is still there).
HDD LED is constantly on, no operation is hearable on the disk.

It is not possible to successfully delete the HDD.
I tried cloning from another HDD to this WD HDD drive. Works flawless.

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Karl

I think deletion of the HDD that you want would require it to be de-initialised. My expectation is that secure deletion of a partiton would not do this - it would only overwrite the partiton table in such a way that the partiton cannot be resurrected. As the disk is still initialised it can be seen by the OS as being available.

None of this explains why the process hangs.

update: Are you refering to the final stage when applying Drive Cleaner? Looking at the documentation that is the only way to do a secure deletion via ATI 2017.

Ian

Ian I was using Drive Cleanser in the Linux ATIH 2017 64bit (UEFI) environment.

Cleaning method was "German Standard, VSITR"

Hello Karl,

How long did you wait before aborting the process? There is a known issue with remaining time being calculated incorrectly in the Drive Cleanser, perhaps you faced an issue with GUI displaying the progress and time remaining wrongly?

I also suggest to check the disk surface with Western Digital`s Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows, found here. Please choose the complete disk check mode, not a quick one. Notice how much time will it take - Acronis Drive Cleanser is expected to take several times longer to wipe the same disk because of the multiple passes it performs.

Regards,

Slava

Hello Slava,

I waited not only literally hours. I left the process alone for about 12 hours and started it in the early evening. Was not finished by noon, while in the morning the process said 8 secs left.