Wiping disk with Bruce Schneier algorithm - stuck at 'less than 1 minute'

I have never tried (i'm not that patient).  As you mentioned, the 3 pass seems to work fine.  You must have some Top Secret stuff on those disks  ; )

I can't say for sure if this is a bug or not with this particular wipe scheme since I've not used it.  However.  I can suggest hat you try Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) to see if it results in the same behavior or not.  DBAN is well regarded as a safe and secure wiping product and the paid version will even provide certification of desctruction if you need that type of feature.  

I will try DBAN and see what happens, but it would be nice if they could fix the 7-pass algorithm in TrueImage.

Yes, it is sensitive data, and I've promised that I will use a 7-pass algorithm.

Hopefully someone else can chime in on the results of a 7 pass wipe as well.  If I can find a small unused SSD, I can try to replicate your error as well, but I don't have a free one available at the moment.

DBAN is very nice.  Even so, if you are doing a lot of secure wipe (and /or a lot of cloning), I can highly recommend the Kangaru multi dock which is completely self sufficient (no PC needed) for secure wipe (up to 999 times in a row and can wipe multiple disks at the same time).  It's a little pricey but if you do a lot of disk wiping, this thing is awesome.  Plus, it's main job is an exact hard drive duplicator which works great too.

https://www.kanguru.com/duplication/kanguruclone-sata-hard-drive-7hd-du…

Looks like they have a cheaper option as well but only does one disk and 4 wipe pass so you'd have to run it twice (not sure if you're interested in going this route at all though).

https://www.kanguru.com/duplication/mobile-clone-hd-1-to-1-dupe.shtml

Rolf Nordeide wrote:

The problem occurs both in the full Windows version as well as on the USB boot stick version.

Any ideas?

Rolf,

Is your USB boot stick WinPE or Linux? 

My theory is Windows is reserving disk space for its own use for File Information overhead.  It could also be denying access to known bad sectors.

I am running a test on a 16Gb SD card, which still has 4+30 to go.  Tomorrow, I'll report the results of the test.  If I get the same result...less than one minute and no completion, I will try the Linux boot and see if that works.

Regards,

FtrPilot

Rolf,

How large are the disk(s) you are wiping?  The larger the disk the longer the wiping process of course.  I ma not that familiar with the algorithm you are using but I do know that certain wiping patterns include a verify pass to make sure the scrub was successful.  This 1 minute remaining may be that pass and the 1 minute may be completely arbitrary and you simply have to be patient and wait until the pass completes.

My test run on a 16Gb Sd card showed that the 7 pass run completed successfully.  I was unable to duplicate your problem.  So, at this point, I have no suggestions other than what Bobbo has suggested.

FtrPilot

Hi, and thanks for your reply.

The USB stick is made by the rescue Media Builder, as an "Acronis bootable rescue media". I can try the other option, "WinPE-based media with Acronis plug-in" and see if I get that to work.

...and Bobbo_3C0X1: Thank you for suggesting DBAN, it works great and solves my problem!

I would still hope that I could get the Acronis disk wipe to function correctly, as I then can choose which partiton to wipe. Useful when I want to delete the system/data partitionand keep a Factory Default recovery partition.

I'm having the same issue.  I did a disk clone, now I'm doing the Acronis disk cleanse.

It's a 1Tb 2.5" ssd.  Previously it had time estimates that did adjust over time.  2hr xxx remaining, 1 hr xxm remaining, etc.

Now at the very end it's been stuck at 1m remaining for well over an hour. This is the very last piece of a long puzzle to get my PC exactly how I wanted it.  After this disk cleanse finishes, I'll format it as the storage drive and be done with PC hardware adjustments for a long time.

It only gave me one option for the disk wipe, like some DoD option or whatever.  So I picked that.

Has anybody cancelled their disk cleanse that was stuck at 1m remaining, restarted it, and had success?

The Acronis disc cloning went perfectly, twice.  Was amazed actually at how well and quickly it worked.  Especially how good it is as cloning smaller drives onto proper partition sized for larger drives, and larger drives onto smaller drives with proper partition sizes.  So this is the only issue I've seen with Acronis at all - and I just need this last little piece sorted.

You should be fine to cancel the disk cleanse.  It likely is complete and the GUI hung up.

At this point, I would use diskpart /clean on the disk, then go back into computer management > disk manager and initialize (either as GPT or MBR - your choice) and then format as NTFS (or whatever you want).  Should be good to go.

I'm getting the same problem with the US DoD algorithm...cancel and try again and it's like nothing was done at all.  

As with Charles, I to have experienced the same problem when I used the 4 pass US DoD algorithm. These are the details of my situation:

Build new computer - 2 SSD's (2TB each), 2 HDD's (8TB each)

Thought I had set the OS to install on the primary SSD, found it installed on on of the HDD's.

Cloned the "C:" drive image to the correct SSD.

Disconnected HDD after shut down, rebooted. System successfully booted. Shut down, reconnected HDD, system rebooted back on the HDD. Adjusted BIOS parameters', next boot successful on the SSD.

Found I couldn't format the HDD (protected system partitions)

As the HDD's are Seagate, downloaded their "SeaTools" (Acronis) and used the Erase - Sanitize Overwrite.

Indication was operation would take an estimated 58 minutes.

Got down to "Less than a minute" with no further progress noticeable (waited 20 or so minutes), though HDD LED was still very active. Left over night (6.5 hours) with no further progress or change in indications.

Looks like the operation was successful, so reformatted.

In my case, it seems that the final operation hung in a repeating loop?

Hope this information helps someone and/or Acronis/Seagate.