Parted Magic
A paid bootable toolkit whose erase program asks the drive to wipe itself, which is the only overwrite that reaches every cell.
What it does
Parted Magic is a Linux live image carrying GParted, ddrescue, TestDisk, benchmarking and disk-health tools, and its own Erase program. That program identifies each attached drive and picks the correct method for it — ATA Secure Erase, ATA Sanitize, NVMe Format, NVMe Sanitize, SAS and eMMC equivalents — rather than blindly writing zeroes over the top.
That distinction is the reason to pay for it. An overwrite from the host cannot address spare blocks or an SSD’s over-provisioned area; a firmware sanitise command runs inside the controller and can.
Notes
- Sold as a one-off download of a single release, or as a subscription that keeps giving you newer ones. Not free, and honest about it.
- Follows the current NIST media-sanitisation guidance, and prints a report you can keep.
- x86-64 boot media, so: Intel Macs and PCs. An Apple Silicon Mac cannot boot it.
- The same image is a competent rescue environment, which makes it less annoying to pay for.
Alternative to
| Alternative | Type | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| ShredOS | Open source | Free, and can issue sanitise commands, with a narrower toolkit around it |
| Samsung Magician | Free | Secure erase for Samsung drives only, and Windows only |
| WD Dashboard or SanDisk SSD Dashboard | Free | Same deal for WD and SanDisk drives; Windows only, one vendor each |
| Seagate SeaTools | Free | Diagnostics first, erase second; Seagate drives |
| diskutil secureErase | Built in | Free and already installed, and cannot reach the firmware at all |
Install
Buy and download the ISO, then write it to a stick:
brew install --cask balenaetcherBoot the target machine from the stick — on an Intel Mac, hold Option at startup.