Drive Eraser 6.1.2 - Release notes

Bug fixes / Improvements:

  • Several improvements to successfully boot and erase Apple machines that were not properly supported before. Part of several improvements to support Apple machines. -Check the attached table that lists the models tested and the erasure results. -Check the recommendations and known issues too.
  • Fix to support the keyboard and trackpad in Apple MacBook9,1. Part of several improvements to support Apple machines.
  • Fix to support the Touch Bar in Apple MacBookPro13,3. Part of several improvements to support Apple machines.
  • Fix for a crash occurring when pulling a drive during the erasure. The problem occurred occasionally on server environments with many drives.
  • Clearer popup messages in case the user wants to erase more drives than allowed.
  • Improvement to detect and report the health of NVMe drives.
  • Several improvements in the erasure engine (speeding up the drive detection and erasure, improving the overall software stability).
  • Several improvements in the communication protocol with the Management Console (report sending, license consumption, user identification, remote control).

Recommendations to erase Apple machines:

  • Apple machines do not support PXE booting and can only be booted via USB sticks (some older models support CD booting as well). Make sure that you use a USB stick that satisfies the following conditions:
    • Quality USB stick (avoid cheap sticks).
    • Working USB stick (avoid broken/failing sticks).
    • Bootable USB stick (format it with Blancco USB Creator 3.0 or higher).
  • If you are experiencing problems with the booting, consider:
    • Formatting completely the USB stick (select the "Format" option in Blancco USB Creator).
    • Creating a bootable USB stick via the Linux command "dd" (there are some Windows tools such as Rufus that can achieve the same goal).
  • When booting Blancco Drive Eraser on Apple machines with NVMe drives, use preferably the "Show startup messages" booting option (unless the attached table says otherwise).
  • Recent MacBook models (e.g. MacBook8,1 , MacBook9,1) come with only one USB-C port that is used for both charging and connecting external peripherals. Before erasing these machines:
    • Make sure that the machine's battery is charged.
    • In order to boot via the USB stick, you need to use a USB-C Hub: disconnect the power cable and connect the hub. The USB-C Hub is also useful to connect external USB peripherals (keyboard, mouse) or network cables.
    • Once the erasure is started, you can disconnect the USB-C Hub and reconnect the power cable.
    • In comparison, recent MacBookPro models come with 4 USB-C ports: you can use a USB-C Hub while charging. Some USB-C Hubs come with power delivery, but we have not tested them.
  • Before booting Blancco Drive Eraser, remove any external peripheral that is not required in the erasure process, in particular remove any connected Thunderbolt interface/adapter (they do not react properly to the Blancco Drive Eraser freeze lock removal process and ultimately can provoke the failure of the erasure).
  • If you are using a Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, we recommend to:
    • Remove the adapter before the booting.
    • During the freeze lock removal procedure (the screen goes black), plug back the adapter.
    • Once the machine is up and running, the adapter will be detected properly and will be usable.

Known issues on Apple machines

  • Some Apple MacBook machines with NVMe (e.g. MacBook9,1 , MacBook8,1 , MacBookAir7,1 ) cannot be purged at all.
    • The firmware commands that allow a purge-level data erasure are missing from these Apple NVMe drives. Cannot be fixed. Such drives can only be overwritten.
  • Some Apple MacBook machines with NVMe (e.g. MacBook8,1) cannot be overwritten (erasure fails with errors).
    • The NVMe is detected fine but all the commands we send fail. This issue comes from the kernel driver that does not support adequately these Apple NVMe drives. The next release 6.2.0 will provide a fix for this problem.
  • Booting animation is not well supported on several Apple machines (e.g. MacBookPro11,4 , MacBookPro11,1 , MacBookAir7,2 , MacBookAir7,1).
    • To skip the booting animation, remove the "splash" booting parameter from the booting option you use (more information in the attached document).

Download the release notes and list of tested Apple machines.

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