Applies to: All editions; post-erasure assessment requires Pro or higher
Stage 1 — Pre-erasure assessment
DriveErase can collect SMART and identity information before destructive processing. This stage establishes a pre-operation record and can identify a device that is already reporting a critical health condition.
When Fail Job on SMART Failure is enabled, a failed or unavailable assessment prevents that device from continuing. Other selected devices can retain their own results.
Stage 2 — Sanitization
The sanitization stage applies the configured approach:
- Overwrite Based: DriveErase writes the selected pattern sequence across the addressable logical range.
- Firmware Based: DriveErase requests the compatible device-firmware operation.
- Firmware + Fallback: DriveErase attempts the firmware method first and runs the selected overwrite profile when the firmware attempt cannot complete.
The resulting status records whether the operation succeeded, failed, completed without certification, used fallback, encountered failed ranges, or could not satisfy verification.
Stage 3 — Post-erasure assessment
Pro, Enterprise, and Audit can run a selected health assessment after erasure. Available choices range from a quick SMART status check to complete media reads, sampled writes, performance analysis, extended self-tests, and combined assessments.
The health result is separate from the erasure result. A device can be successfully sanitized but receive a poor health grade. Conversely, a healthy device can still have an incomplete sanitization result.
Per-device independence
Each selected device has its own settings and result bundle. A multi-device job can therefore contain different methods and outcomes. Review the result for each device rather than relying only on an overall job completion message.