How can we confirm with certanty a USB or Harddrive is not infected after reformatting?

Question

Running the following code on a linux machine returns the partition tables and partial config of the hard-drive and USB devices.

fdisk -l 

returns

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: PC300 NVMe 256GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xfbbbaaa

Device         Boot   Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1         2048   2361344   2359297   1.1G 83 Linux
/dev/nvme0n1p2 *    2361345 500103449 497742105 237.3G 83 Linux

Are there any manual checks we can do to ensure sanitation(no infection) after performing

• re-formatting
• deleting the partitions
• remove filesystems

Is there any other steps I am missing, and do the above need to be performed in a specific order?

Does a more comprehensive command/solution exist to wipe a storage device and confirm its cleansed after? Ex md5 hash

Answer 1

This drive is using an MS-DOS partition table which leaves room for MBR viruses though I've not seen those for over 20 years now.

Under Linux the two easiest and fastest way to wipe the disk are:

• sudo blkdiscard -v /dev/nvme0n1 (this is irrevocable and destroys all data immediately, proceed with extra caution)
• Secure erase using hdparm (normally unnecessary and redundant - I've not heard of a single case where SSD/NVMe data has been retrieved after discarding data): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Solid_state_drive/Memory_cell_clearing