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I'm selling my gaming computer to a neighbor. As much as I trust him, I don't trust any third party who might get access to the computer. So I've come to the conclusion to overwrite the free space of the SSD to permanently erase deleted files. I'm using a popular tool called Eraser. The computer runs on Windows 11.

Based on my research, SSDs automatically overwrite or "erase" free space. So do I even have to use the Eraser in this case?

I only want to erase/overwrite the free space because I want to remain the games for him.

Giacomo1968
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paranoidrunner
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    Was your disk encrypted? Then it’s naturally scrambled. Just wipe the disk and do a clean install of the base OS and all is fine. – Giacomo1968 Feb 20 '24 at 23:35
  • It isn't. I only want to erase/overwrite the free space because I want to remain the games for him. – paranoidrunner Feb 20 '24 at 23:47
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    Better someone else with more Windows experience confirm, but I am not too sure that that SSD sector allocation is the same as hard drives. Meaning if you are feeling paranoid, just go ahead and run the wipe of free space. – Giacomo1968 Feb 20 '24 at 23:54
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    SSDs write information in spaces random to us and look after it with TRIM. I doubt you can find a block of free space. @Giacomo1968 is correct. – John Feb 20 '24 at 23:58
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    So my take on it is "yes its safe if..." but a lot of factors impact that if condition. I recommend you focus what makes you feel OK about the situation. in all probability things are fine as is, but you are the one who needs to sleep tonight. Wear-leveling and TRIM are designed for different purposes than data confidentiality, so it can be hard to get a warm fuzzy feeling about them. – Frank Thomas Feb 21 '24 at 00:00
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    Windows has an option, in its reset mode, to prepare the device to be sold/gifted/given away. This step performs a basic but effective wipe of the places where user data was stored on your computer without requiring a full wipe/reinstall. If you're giving this away to a friend who will use the computer, it should be fine for your purposes and needs. You don't have to worry about nation-state level attacks against your data, so you don't need to perform military-grade wiping processes. If you did, you should have been encrypting your drive ot begin with. – music2myear Feb 21 '24 at 00:47
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    you should include the information about leaving games in the original post - you can edit it using the 'Edit' button right below the post!

    also, if these games are installed through a game manager like Steam and are not just executables, odds are your neighbor will not be able to play them.

     – shea Feb 21 '24 at 01:12
  • In reference to your last question on John's answer, yes, the advice provided on this thread is very much exclusive to SSD-based storage, and is not applicable to magnetic-resonance based storage mechanisms like mechanical HDDs or Tapes. for those we would absolutely recommend using secure erasure technologies. – Frank Thomas Feb 26 '24 at 02:09

1 Answers1

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For SSDs, the only practical thing you can do is to back up what you want, and then my recommendation is to do a full format of the SSD. That will fully erase in and any future use will negate any old data.

If it needs an operating system, just download Windows for it and install it. The licensing server will license the OS.

This is overall easiest to understand and to perform.

John
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  • I only want to erase/overwrite the free space because I want to remain the games for him. – paranoidrunner Feb 21 '24 at 00:10
  • That is not practical because there is no practical way to identify just the free space. Back up what you need and format / install the OS. – John Feb 21 '24 at 00:11
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    @paranoidrunner Capture a WIM of the OS partition, and any other data partitions wanting to backup, from WinRE, do a full erase of the SSD, then use Steps 1 - 6 at the bottom of the linked answer to recreate the requisite partitions, and finally Apply the WIM(s) captured earlier to the OS partition and any other partitions backed up – JW0914 Feb 21 '24 at 00:22
  • @John Does this impracticality only apply to SSDs? – paranoidrunner Feb 21 '24 at 10:05
  • Yes, SSDs operate as mentioned and answered. – John Feb 21 '24 at 11:36