[[ solved ]]

I have a stack of SATA hard drives that I need to erase.

I have a USB drive dock, a box that a drive can be set into that connects to my computer via USB-3.

I am using DD to write zeros to the raw device, in this case, /dev/sdf.

No matter the actual size of the drive dd stops at about 3 to 7 gb. These are 300 gb to 3 TB drives.

I am not mounting the drives, but I do ensure they are visible to the system with lsblk. To change drives I turn off the dock. The drive then disappears from lsblk. When I insert a different drive and turn the dock back on again /dev/sdf re-appears.

Are all my drives bad? If they are I will need to have them “professionally” destroyed at about $25 a drive.

Next Update –

I started with a USB to SATA adapter that looked like a small box with a SATA connector on one edge and a USB cable coming out of one side, it had a power supply that connected to the small box - everything out in the open.

Then I went to a drive toaster - a dock where you slot the drive into a hole in the top of the dock, again powered and USB-3 (blue connector)

As of this update I have opened my USB-3 external drive and removed it’s native drive and put in one of the 1TB drives I wish to erase. I also switched to my production laptop. Now I have issued a dd command and it has written so far 28GB from /dev/urandom.

I think this will finally work. - I am marking this solved.

  • vividspecter@vlemmy.net
    1·
    1 year ago

    Sometimes this is due to buggy UAS support. Look into blocking it globally or for your specific dock but check your logs first ideally.

    • WasPentaliveOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Nothing shows up in dmesg -w after the drive is attached. When I power down the dock the drive is detached. It seems the drive is USB 4-1.

      • vividspecter@vlemmy.net
        1·
        1 year ago

        I mean when the actual issue shows up, although there should be some messaging showing if you’re using uas or usb-storage instead. You can just blacklist the uas module as a test and see if the issue goes away, and then doing it more specifically so other drives can use it.