Now you need to open the Secure Erase GUI from the desktop:
And select the secure erase option:
Alternatively, select this option for NVME drives:
Next, the Secure Erase GUI will present you with a list of disks you can erase:
Simply tick the "Disk Verifier" option, and specify the disks you want to verify, and the percentage of the disk you want to verify (defaults to 100%), and click continue.
Tip | |
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You can deselect the "Auto Start" and "Auto Close" options if you wish, but this just means Disk Verifier will wait for you to start the verification for all drives, and will wait for you to close it when the verification is done. |
After this, you'll see a confirmation dialog:
After ticking the tick box at the bottom, you can click "Start Erase" to begin erasing the disk(s). This can take anything from a few seconds for new SSDs, to hours or even days for larger HDDs. As you can see from the screenshot, my disk takes around 80 minutes.
Once erasing is complete, the window will disappear, and Disk Verifier will open. Depending on the options you picked, Disk Verifier will now usually begin verifying the disk(s). This may take a while depending on the size and speed of your disk(s).
Hopefully, your verification will complete successfully, and you'll get a green mark:
Warning | |
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If you instead get a red mark, it indicates that verification has failed. This may mean that your disk is damaged and couldn't be erased. Attempt to erase it again, and try again. |
Once finished, you'll be presented with this window, so you can save the logs if you wish. Note that these logs include drive serial numbers - please keep them in a safe place if you save them.