I'm returning 2 dirt cheap x 4TB USB3 usb external 2.5" HDD drives
I copied about 25% of personal data on one of it, and can't remember which one was because they look identical, so I need to secure wipe them.
- I tried windows full format, after 12h it was ~ 10-15% done.
- I tried cmd cipher command, it was painfully slow
- I tried veracrypt, (full mode, not quick) the same
- Now I'm trying
format E: /fs:NTFS /p:1 but it appears it's also taking long.
IT appears 3 days is what it'll take to full format one drive, problem is I have to take them both back in 1.5 days.
Question: Is there a way to wipe secure (one pass is enough) or fill the drive with empty data but by not being limited by the painfully slow write speeds, maybe creating or extracting an empty zip file that would be much larger upon extraction, on the drive itself or something like that?
I can only do this on windows since my linux mini pc doesn't have enough power to supply to these crappy drives and can't do anything to them over there.