securely wiping drives

[Michael Butash]

On 12/15/2014 10:36 PM, Todd Millecam wrote:

> After the erase, the password is gone so no worries there.  It's a 
> good idea to set the password because a lot of firmwares/bioses will 
> freeze the drive security settings after boot without one (Lenovo, 
> Dell, HP to name a few).  If you get an I/O error running hdparm 
> commands, then do hdparm -I and look for the text "        frozen" 
> which means your bios is freezing that functionality on the hard drive 
> immediately after boot.
>
If you do get this "frozen" mode using secure erase with ssd's, I've 
been stumped by this - just suspend the system and unsuspend.

I never understood if this was some sort of bug or security through 
obscurity...

-mb