I recently purchased a 4TB external Seagate drive to back up my pictures and data from my UGreen NAS. Unfortunately, the drive has stopped working completely. I've tried everything I could find online to fix it, but nothing has worked. Amazon has agreed to take it back since it failed within the return period, but I'm concerned about the security of my data on this drive. Is there a reliable way to format it or make it permanently unreadable before I send it back?
2 Answers
You might want to check out DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) for securely wiping drives. It can perform a zero-pass or DOD-standard erase, but keep in mind, it could take a day or so to complete. Just make sure the drive is recognized by your computer before running it.
It really depends on what you mean by "stopped working." If the drive isn't being recognized at all and you can't hear it spinning up, that complicates things. In this case, using software like DBAN may not work since it relies on the drive being detected by your PC.
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