Cannot Secure Erase an SSD drive

So, after reading a ton about SSD drives and finally getting one (Intel X25-M G2), I played around with it for a while today and figured that I would just do a secure erase to get it back to factory defaults before really getting it setup on my machine.

Turns out the Secure Erase app (3.3 or 4.0) won't work as the BIOS of my machine sends a "freeze lock" command thus these tools cannot touch the drive.

I've tried the Linux bootable CD with hdparm tool as well and it to shows that the device is locked...thus it cannot proceed.

I've tried the Secure Erase tool from several machines and all result in same thing. Secure Erase gets to welcome screen where it would display the attached hard drives and that is as far as it goes.

So, anybody got any suggestions. According to people who make Secure Erase, a least desirable workaround is to boot the machine with no power attached to the drive and then connect power while the machine is running. Well, obviously with a brand new hard drive, I don't want to do that.

Nevermind. I found a computer at my house where this functionality works as it should. I was able to successfully secure erase my drive on my Intel X25-M G2 drive.

pparks1 said:

Nevermind. I found a computer at my house where this functionality works as it should. I was able to successfully secure erase my drive on my Intel X25-M G2 drive.

May I ask why you had to do a secure erase? I have a problem with my new drive too, it's the same model as yours.

I had the same issue.
The solution for me was:
I had to switch to IDE mode in Bios, then Enable Leagacy Mode.
It then required a complete power down of the MOBO and restart to take effect.
Just restarting wouldnt work, even tho it was set correctly.

Same when setting it back to Legacy disabled and AHCI mode.