[SOLVED] zeroing SSD with dd

anctop · 07-08-2021, 01:31 AM

Hi,

I tried to wipe a WD Green 240GB SATA SSD.
As WD does not provide "official" diagnostic tool for the product, I plugged the drive in a Linux system and executed the command:

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX

However the process died with the error "Input/output error" after writing a random amount (varied from 400MB to 900MB) of zeros to the drive.

It seems to be a hardware issue, but testing the drive with "smartctl" reports no error.

What other tests can be conducted in order to arrive at a convincing conclusion about the usability of the drive ?

pan64 · 07-08-2021, 01:41 AM

you can try another OS, another host to check if that works.

GentleThotSeaMonkey · 07-08-2021, 02:10 AM

There's tons of 'FUD' about SSD ('heavy' writing), as web-searches like this finds:

erase|zero* SSD with dd "Input/output error" (& I added flush)

I liked this one, but I don't trust any for certainty.
https://rabexc.org/posts/recovering-from-failed-ssd

I liked conv=fdatasync (& fstrim, but IDK)

Without a big bs= , doesn't it run extremely slow?

Let us know what you discover (as you try things),
and hopefully the (detailed&explained) solution. Best wishes.

anctop · 07-08-2021, 03:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

you can try another OS, another host to check if that works.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I moved the drive to another machine, it can be zeroed without error.
It is then moved back to the original system and repeat the "dd" command, the reported failure vanishes.