Are my chipsets just incompatible with Secure Erase tools?

[JWCC]

I think that this is the right forum for this.

Tried on USB cable on old laptop (Dell Latitude C400) before reading that it must be directly connected.

Tried on my server(GA-K8N Pro-SLI [nForce4 chipset]) until I found that my chipset apparently isn't supported. No, it's not a RAID, either. I still get the "function not implemented" or "error 40" messages in HDParm! Yes, I used a 'junk' password to work as temporary password until reboot. Tried the master password of all spaces. Still no go.

Tried on new laptop(Acer AS4551-4315):

1) hot swapping or hitting enter multiple times on boot
2) dropping to a single 2GB module
3) HDD Erase 4.0 boot CD - kept crashing at the CD-ROM driver but... program isn't in DOS boot image - d'oh! - also randomly crashed earler likely due to RAM/driver/conflict issues.
4) Hiren's boot CD's DOS portion which also has HDD Erase.
5) Linux
a) Everything including the HDParm wrapper.
6) MiniXP (legal for me only because I have an XP license, hehe)
a) Victoria (all variations listed online + playing with options)
b) Roadkill's tool
c) HDDUnlock (the silly program that needs web access to protect 'secrets')
d) MHDD

Victoria log:

Code:

01:09:46 : Starting Victoria 4.46b Freeware (12.08.2008), 1xCPU, 2294.46 MHz, Windows XP found.
01:09:54 : PCI Bus Scan...
01:09:54 : ATI/ID 439C*, BUS: 0/DEV: 20/FUN: 1
01:10:16 : PIO access enabled. Base=1F0h, Alt=3F6h
01:10:17 : Port 01F0h - drive disconnected!
01:10:20 : PCI Bus Scan...
01:10:20 : ATI/ID 439C*, BUS: 0/DEV: 20/FUN: 1
01:10:55 :  - Unknown error
01:10:56 : [ATA protocol] DRQ!!! Press RESET or restart HDD!
01:10:56 : Get drive passport: Drive error!
01:10:57 :  - Unknown error
01:10:58 : [ATA protocol] DRQ!!! Press RESET or restart HDD!
01:10:59 : Get drive passport: Drive error!
01:11:00 :  - Unknown error
01:11:01 : [ATA protocol] DRQ!!! Press RESET or restart HDD!
01:11:01 : Security ERASE done


Thinking of trying Faltool, Fakel, FJDT, FJErase, Fujitsu Explorer, Fujtool, hddl, pchdd, etc. I've also looked at the yura.projektas.lt site. Some of those look a bit more risky. It shouldn't be this hard to get low-level tools to work since game system modders have been doing it for a while. There must be something unusual about my 3 computers that prevents this from working. That or PBK&C? I'd have just waited to take it back but it's a rather long walk. I didn't want to take the laptop with me to test it, by the way because it's on a bus+walking. The laptop had no password set, by the way.

I'll post more information like the results of HDParm -I, later.

[JWCC]

From what I've read by searching for 'nForce' and 'Secure Erase' on Google, this is a known issue with almost all such programs when operated on AMD boards. I'm using an old Intel board that has the more compatible chipset and onboard SATA as a workaround. Oddly, the documentation on these programs makes little or no mention of this issue. For people having this problem in the future, you might want to play with the 'AHCI/IDE/RAID' options in BIOS setup. RAID most certainly won't work! Sometimes a specific SATA port will work and others won't. If in doubt, try to get a friend with an Intel board to help. This is directly related to TRIM support on SSD (Solid-state drives) in that the issue tends to exist with specific controller chips or drivers. Good luck!

The laptop is an 880M chipset, by the way. Also, I'm surprised that no one knew the answer to this question. Whatever - It's answered now.

[Vulcan]

Also, I'm surprised that no one knew the answer to this question.

There were other reasons too, but I was waiting for you to supply the information you said you were going to do:

I'll post more information like the results of HDParm -I, later.

Also, FYI:

For people having this problem in the future, you might want to play with the 'AHCI/IDE/RAID' options in BIOS setup.

That's already mentioned in the MHDD docs - but you said you'd tried MHDD, so I thought you already knew this. The potential need to change this BIOS setting before running MHDD (and HDDErase, for example), has also been mentioned on this board many times (by me and others)

Anyway, glad you've been able to solve your own question.

[JWCC]

Also, I'm surprised that no one knew the answer to this question.

There were other reasons too, but I was waiting for you to supply the information you said you were

going to do:

I'll post more information like the results of HDParm -I, later.

Also, FYI:

For people having this problem in the future, you might want to play with the

'AHCI/IDE/RAID' options in BIOS setup.

That's already mentioned in the MHDD docs - but you said you'd tried MHDD, so I thought you already

knew this. The potential need to change this BIOS setting before running MHDD (and HDDErase, for

example), has also been mentioned on this board many times (by me and others)

Anyway, glad you've been able to solve your own question.

The CD images UBCD or Hiren are most likely where I was trying to use MHDD from. They didn't provide

a link to the manuals... I'm going to add keywords so that the first thing people find for these will give

them the links to the FAQ and manuals so they don't have to ask what I did. "unsupported function not

supported implemented available unimplemented error 40 incompatible chipset nVidea nForce4" should be

enough! That 'rws' version of the manual appears to be one that someone has been keeping upto

date.

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02- ... al.en.html
hdd-faq-t5.html
http://real-world-systems.com/docs/MHDD_en_manual.html

IDE/SATA Controllers:

Any integrated into motherboard north bridge (addresses: 0x1Fx for primary channel, 0x17x for

secondary channel)
AHCI controllers, however, not all - if yours is not recognized, try switching it to the IDE mode

(sometimes also called Legacy Mode). This can be done in BIOS Setup.
PCI UDMA boards (detected automatically): HPT, Silicon Image, Promise, ITE, ATI and so on. Even

some RAID boards are supported. In this case MHDD works with each physical drive separately
UDMA/RAID controllers integrated into motherboard as additional chip

The FAQ doesn't mention nForce or AMD chipsets. I was pretty sure that I found a document saying that 1 of the Promise chipsets won't ever work, but maybe the fixed it.

Platform and supported hardware

Platform:
DR-DOS , MSDOS version 6.22 included on CD image

Hardware
Intel Pentium or higher CPU
boot device (USB, CDROM, FDD, HDD)

IDE/SATA Controllers
Any integrated into motherboard north bridge (addresses: 0x1Fx for primary channel, 0x17x for

secondary channel)
PCI UDMA boards (detected automatically): HPT, Silicon Image, Promise, ITE, ATI and so on. Some

RAID boards are supported. In this case MHDD works with each physical drive separately
UDMA/RAID controllers integrated into motherboard as additional chip

Hard disk drives

IDE or Serial-ATA drive with size bigger than 600Mbytes, i.e. LBA mode is supported in full.removed

CHS code since version 2.9
IDE or Serial-ATA drive with size smaller than 8,388,607 TBytes, i.e. LBA48 mode is supported.
SCSI drive with sector size 512—528 bytes

Other devices
Any SCSI removable media such as tape, CDROM. Maximum sector size for such devices is 4096

bytes

USB and RAID is mentioned in the manuals of ALL programs. I figured that out before even trying MHDD.



Even though it's probably out of warranty, I've crossed-out the last 3 characters of the serial number.

Here's the dumps:
hdparm -i /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:

Model=ST31000333AS, FwRev=SD15, SerialNo= 5TE03***
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=268435455
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: unknown: ATA/ATAPI-4 ATA/ATAPI-5 ATA/ATAPI-6 ATA/ATAPI-7

* signifies the current active mode

hdparm -I /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: ST31000333AS
Serial Number: 5TE03***
Firmware Revision: SD15
Transport: Serial
Standards:
Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x0029)
Supported: 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 8
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 1953525168
device size with M = 1024*1024: 953869 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 1000204 MBytes (1000 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = ?
Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 0
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
SET_MAX security extension
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* 64-bit World wide name
* Write-Read-Verify feature set
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* SATA-I signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* SATA-II signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Phy event counters
Device-initiated interface power management
* Software settings preservation
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT Long Sector Access (AC1)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
unknown 206[12]
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
176min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 176min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.

Checksum: incorrect (0x3c), expected 0xc4

Motherboard: Gigabyte K8N SLI Pro
ATA Chipsets: nForce4 SLI (SATA), ITE IT8712 (PATA)
SATA driver: nvata.sys 5.10.2600.0552, idecoi.dll 1.0.0.1, idecoins.dll 1.0.0.1, NVCOI.DLL 1.0.0.29

[JWCC]

I blame being tired on top of being in a hurry... Those are the lines for a 1TB drive that I'm copying over to my shiny new 2TB from WD. I got a WD20EZRX-00EWTB0 which is equivalent to WD20EARX but with AFM. Here's the list of model number info for those interested (WD Document #2579-001028-A23).

Here's the legit info:
hdparm -i /dev/hde

/dev/hde:

Model=FUJITSU MHZ2320BH G1, FwRev=00000009, SerialNo= K60AT922A***
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=268435455
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0x80 (128) WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: unknown: ATA/ATAPI-3 ATA/ATAPI-4 ATA/ATAPI-5 ATA/ATAPI-6 AT
A/ATAPI-7

* signifies the current active mode

hdparm -I /dev/hde

/dev/hde:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: FUJITSU MHZ2320BH G1
Serial Number: K60AT922A***
Firmware Revision: 00000009
Transport: Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5; Revisi
on: ATA8-AST T13 Project D1697 Revision 0b
Standards:
Used: ATA-8-ACS revision 3f
Supported: 8 7 6 5
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 625142448
device size with M = 1024*1024: 305245 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 320072 MBytes (320 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
Advanced power management level: 128 (0x80)
Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
* Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Advanced Power Management feature set
SET_MAX security extension
* Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
* 64-bit World wide name
* IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
unknown 119[0]
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* SATA-I signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Host-initiated interface power management
* Phy event counters
DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
Device-initiated interface power management
* Software settings preservation
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
enabled
locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
not supported: enhanced erase
Security level high
320min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Checksum: incorrect (0x1c), expected 0xe4

[Vulcan]

Are you asking a question? If so, I didn't see one (although other readers might have seen one that I missed). Or are you just providing the info which you said you were going to do, but since you've solved your issue, you're not expecting a reply?

[JWCC]

It was followup info since I've still not got an Intel board. I'm just going to take it back if I can't solve this before exchange warranty runs out. Yeah, I saved the receipt, hehe.

I'm looking for a (hopefully) cheap PCI card that supports HDDErase or the like. I'll probably return it or get a compatible card (which can be used again for other drives, of course) and follow up.

[JWCC]

PCI-based Sil3112 work?
Or VT6421a?
Not too many cards advertise if they support AHCI. These can be flashed with non-RAID firmware that turns them into IDE ports.

[JWCC]

The Sil3531ACNU used in a StarTech PEXESATA1 is PCI-E. The program manual doesn't say exactly what chipsets to get so I'm asking if anyone has tested these. Is there some changelist/history for hardware/firmware support?

I do know that there are also often 2 versions of the firmware - 'fake' RAID and straight SATA (nonRAID).

Which of these work?
Sil3112? Sil3114? Sil3124? Sil3132? Sil3512? Sil3531?