Hi, I’ve problem to secure erase my Samsung SSD 840 evo. I’ve created the bootable USB disk with the Samsung Magician software (4.4) and try to boot with the disk. However, after boot with the usb, the text of the screen becomes unreadable. And I tried to enter Y, Y, the screen just go to the command prompt and nothing happened. I’m using this SSD for my main OS Win 8.1 x64. My specs is GA-Z87-UD3H, nVidia GTX 770 with intel graphics disabled.
Please help.
Thanks
EDIT by Fernando: Thread title customized (to merge all posts with a similar topic into this thread)
@ Calvin:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
I had no problem to secure erase my Samsung 840 PRO SSDs by using the Samsung Magician 4.4 Boot CD. Since the tool has been designed for US keyboards and I am using a German one, I had to hit "Z", when I was prompted to hit "Y".
Another option to do a secure erasure of Samsung SSDs is to use the bootable last free version of Parted Magic.
Good luck!
Fernando
Hey guys, long time lurker here 
Does nayone know how to secure erase an SSD connected to an LSI HBA in Linux?
@ Computurd:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
It depends on the SSD model and not on the OS you are running.
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)
i have only one question to u,
is it possible to low level format an SSD to theirs LBA sectors without loss off space?
i know Intel does provide an Toolbox for that with secure erase, but is this that what i am asking for?
I don’t know that, but I would always prefer to secure erase the SSD instead of doing a low-level-formatting.
@RaidCaptain :
Since your question has nothing to do with the topic "Intel RST/RSTe Drivers", I have moved it into this thread, which is matching your topic.
Just boot with the bootable USB disk with Samsung Magician Software after you get the unreadable screen press ESC and this will bring you to the command prompt at the prompt just type "SEGUI0 /s" this will make your scree readable and follow screen instruction
Best Regards
MR
My go-to method for erasing drives is hdparm from a Linux LiveUSB (I use a daily of openSUSE Tumbleweed, but Ubuntu works perfectly for this too as well as Fedora) and secure-erase-enhanced. Basically involves two commands (one to set the drive password (which can be anything; I just use the letter x), and the other to perform the wipe and get rid of the password):
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sudo hdparm --user-master u --security-set-pass 'x' '/dev/sda'
sudo hdparm --user-master u --security-erase-enhanced 'x' '/dev/sda'
This requires the drive (which is assumed to be '/dev/sda', can check with 'lsblk') not to be in a frozen state. Some computers may put the drive into a frozen state upon boot (you can check frozen status with sudo hdparm -I '/dev/sda'). If you can hotplug the drive, it's a good idea to leave it unplugged, boot the distro LiveUSB, and then plug the drive in. In some cases, you can also reset the frozen status by suspending the distro and waking it.
It's pretty important to make sure the drive wipe happens after you set the drive password (rebooting before getting rid of the password can cause the drive to be permanently locked in rare cases and/or require a different computer to unlock it), and it's also important to make sure you don't try this unless you're directly plugged into the drive unless you know it'll work (no USB-to-SATA or external drives basically).
On my ADATA SP550 SSD (120GB), the wipe takes about 9 seconds. On a 2TB WD Black 7200RPM HDD, the wipe takes about 4 hours.
@Espionage724 :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum and thanks for your contribution!
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)