Samsung Magician Secure Erase Bootable USB - Total Nightmare

GregI

GregI

GregI

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I have a MSI B550 Unify and a 980 Pro. I am wanting to secure erase it before selling. It seems like most people recommend (as makes sense) to have the software by the manufacturer do it. This leads me to Samsung Magician.

I know a decent amount about tech stuff but I have never really had to change all the legacy boot stuff as this was not a UEFI image. After changing the board to CSM mode I could go into boot mode and just find the non uefi drive. It booted.

My keyboard is just dead at this screen (taken from YouTube): https://i.imgur.com/FPKT5rm.png

I cannot type anything. If i replug it in about 7 or 8 times at random usb ports it finally works and I can type y to accept. 2 people on YouTube commented about keyboard not working so I know I'm not alone.

The software then can't find the single nvme in the system and then tells me to press a key to exit. If I press a key then that key just infinitely scrolls on screen and it appears to crash and never exits. This forces a manual shutdown.

Anything I missed?
 
I guess your BIOS doesn't include it's own secure erase feature. Considering Samsung Magician secure erase basically uses Linux you could try a Linux live CD/USB and the nvme-cli command.

Personally I'd be happy with simply using Windows diskpart to remove all the partitions and the clean command but you're in a far better position to decide if that's enough for you. :)
 
Last edited:
@Murphy Apparently the BIOS does (called Secure Erase+) but using the software by the manufacturer seemed liked the best option. Plus: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/8fepwr/secure_erase_thank_you_msi_and_intel_now_my_ssd/

I just ended up getting parted magic. Seemed like lots of people have it and it worked flawlessly for me.

I don't know how on earth in 2021 Samsung thinks a drive that most people spent over £180 for should have some barebones Linux implementation and not even be UEFI based with some nice graphics is beyond me. Apparently WD has a UEFI based secure erase USB tool. If I knew how much hassle this would be I would have gone for the SN850 I think.
 
Yea i was going to suggest parted magic but from what i understand the last free to use version was from 2019 or 13 so i was a little unsure how well it would handle a 980 Pro, glad to know you got it sorted and yes Samsung secure erase is hot garbage. :)
 
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