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Using strixwipe (Strix Disk Cleaner on Linux)

⚠️ strixwipe erase permanently destroys all data on the target disk. There is no undo. Always confirm the device path with strixwipe list / lsblk first.

1. List disks (safe)

strixwipe list

Shows each whole disk, its size/type, and whether it is erasable or PROTECTED (the system/root disk and any mounted disk are protected).

2. Rehearse on a loopback device (recommended first run)

No real disk is touched:

truncate -s 256M /tmp/t.img
sudo losetup -f --show /tmp/t.img      # prints e.g. /dev/loop0
sudo strixwipe erase /dev/loop0 --method zero --yes-really-erase
#   -> type /dev/loop0, then type ERASE
sudo losetup -d /dev/loop0             # detach
rm /tmp/t.img

3. Erase a real data disk

First unmount every partition of the target disk (the tool refuses a disk with any mounted partition):

sudo umount /dev/sdX*                   # unmount all partitions
sudo strixwipe erase /dev/sdX --method blkdiscard --yes-really-erase

You will be asked to type the device path and ERASE to proceed.

Choosing a method

Method Best for Notes
blkdiscard SSD / NVMe Fast TRIM/discard of the whole device. Preferred on flash.
nvme-sanitize NVMe SSD Hardware sanitize (needs nvme-cli); most thorough for flash.
hdparm-secure SATA SSD/HDD ATA Secure Erase — driven manually with hdparm (see notes).
zero HDD Single zero-fill pass.
random HDD Single cryptographic-random pass.
dod HDD 3 passes (zeros, ones, random), DoD 5220.22-M style.

On SSDs/NVMe, prefer a hardware method — overwriting is unreliable on flash because of wear levelling. strixwipe warns you if you pick an overwrite method on a non-rotational device.

After erasing

Recreate a partition table if you want to reuse the disk:

sudo parted /dev/sdX mklabel gpt