RedKey USB is it legit?

Hardware & Tech Questions
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EDIT: I just wanted to point out I think the RedKey USB company is Legit. the Problem with Winows could have just been a corrupt install. I seen tons of videos about Redkey on YouTube so it just has to be legit…

Hey guys,

A while ago I seen a video from like Linus or one of the other know youtuber tech guys about RedKey USB wipe Harddrive program and usb stick…

Now I seen a few other youtubers who used it so I went ahead and bought the Ultimate RedKey 64GB that comes with a red key, blue key and Green Key basically a USB Stick shaped like a key.

Now it looked pretty prefesionaly put together and all but my issue is is this company a Legit company that put this program out there which has many iterations of a Wipe program, like DOD 5220.22M which does 3 writes over the drive plus many others kinds with different times it writes to the drive…

I am kinda concerned as I wiped my drive with the DOD Wipe and when I reinstalled Windows, I was having all kinds of lock ups and such. I kinda felt I was under attack or something wierd was going on.

So I spent the better part of the night and morning trying my oldfaithful program I use Parted Magic which has iNuke Wipe Dariks wipe. I use the same DOD wipe technique and when I reinstalled windowss like I have done many times in the past it was all good, I have not had 1 hickup with the Parted magic and iNuke…

Now is this RedKey USB Program legit and upfront or is this some shady corporation that uses it as a frone to put viruses and such on unsuspecting fools PC’s…

I have found many youtube videos talking about this program and it all seems good, I just dont understand why when I did it it went south real quick…

Now I would classify myself as a reinstall expert as I do it nearly every month for unspecified reasons. so it is not like this was my first wipe and reinstall. I have been using parted magic for at least 4 years with the similar wipe program and never had an issue…

Now I had used the redkey you get an installer from the following website where I purchased it from and they stated to only buy it here as I did, as no one else is licensed to sell it besides RedKey USB.com…

here is the website which is undwer maintenece and has been since early last night:

https://redkeyusb.com/

Now how can I figure out what had happened here as I really think something funny is going on here or maybe it was a corrupted reinstall but seems funy all is well after using parted magic?

Sorry for the long post but I really get paranoid over this crap… thank you and hopefully I can figure out what is going on here.

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I generally gravitate towards open source tools for security relevant stuff. All flavours of linux usually come with a quite powerful set of command line tools for hard drive partition manipulation that work very well, but can admittedly be a bit odd to use if you’re not used to doing stuff in the shell.

It is very easy to create a linux bootable live usb medium that you can use for such stuff. Pick a flavor of linux that uses the gnome window manager (i.e. ubuntu) and that should give you a GUI tool for the most common disk stuff (it’s called disks, odd i know). The advanced stuff you will need to google (or ask specific questions) but is in general very well documented on the net.

No idea what’s going on with your usb stick though. It sounds a bit like you had a corrupted file system, but finding out would necessitate reproducing the fault and then running a bunch of diagnostics.

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Yes well the RedKey Webwsite is doing an update so that source is down for now… I will try and run he redkey usb again and see what was in there maybe there is a help section…

I just think maybe this redkey is a little more advanced then I thought and will require some reading up on it…

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Do you use your PC for non-gaming related stuff or why do you even need to overwrite your disks when you reinstall windows?

Btw. i hope you’re aware of the peculiarities of SSDs when wiping and are not using HDD overwrite techniques for those.

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well I had hopes of maybe trying to start a side business and I am experimenting on my PC…

are you refering to the limited amount of writes you can do to an SSD?

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The reason why, in a security context, you need to wipe HDDs several times is because the bits are stored as magnetized zones on the disk. When a bit is written over, residual magnetism remains and there are techniques to use that residual magnetism to restore the data. Writing each bit several times destroys this residual information.

SSDs work very differently though. Most SSDs nowadays have special purge commands that wipe the entire disk at once without severely compromising the lifetime of the drive. Additionally, the SSD controller employs wear-leveling, which means there’s a level of abstraction between a file system block and the actual hardware that it is written to. Without manipulating the firmware, you can’t really make sure where the controller stores its data (as it is choosing the optimum spot for leveling the wear of the NAND flash modules). In the end, securely erasing an SSD depends on whether there is a purge command and how well it is implemented. YMMV.

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Did not know that. Good info!

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hmm I see thank you for that info. but If I wanted to totally purge it would’nt I need to do an overwrite say 3 times and then a blanking pass?

I did see some info about using Diskpart that could be a option as well but doesn’t it just overwrite ones and zeros as well??

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You mean for an SSD? Well that wouldn’t securely write all NAND bits because of the wear leveling. Without a special firmware command, I’m not aware how you would make sure that all information on a SSD is actually wiped.

I’m sorry, I don’t understand this question. Could you try explaining in a bit more detail?

I’m a bit short on time right now but there’s good documentation about SSD erasing, e.g. here. Disclaimer: There are commands on that page that can brick your disk if not used correctly, so make extra sure you read carefully and know what you are doing. You have been warned. :wink:

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As far as I know, RedKey is legit. And, AFAIK, it should be able to handle an SSD properly. As @sobek says, there are open source alternatives.

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Well Good News it does infact seem that RedKey USB is Legit and good to use. The website was partially done and I found the manual for RedKey which was very helpfull and I found out what I needed to know.

I guess I should have looked for an opensource program but I already purchased this and there are no returns if I used it which I already did so no big deal this is a really cool program and such…

Now I am good to go as I read the manual and seen where for NVME SSD Drives to use Sanatize. it seems it kinda auto sets it according to the drive it found.

I will chalk up the issue I was having with Windows as just probally a falty install and there is nothing malicous about RedKey…

Thank you all…

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I had found out for my M.2 NVME drives to use Sanitize which takes a few seconds to wipe the drive. now I emailed Redkey and they totally missed my questions so maybe someone here knows…

When I use Sanitize will that wipe a drive so data is unrecoverable on it? Also say I had a bad worm/Virus would it eliminatee that as well…

I just find it hard to believe that the Data will be unrecoverable with just a quick wipe like Sanitize does…

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The superfast sanitize operation makes sense to me: NVMe SSDs have orders of magnitude higher write speed and as @sobek explained, there is no need for multiple passes on an SSD, just a clean reset on every NAND unit is enough.

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Can I ask a dumb question, Is there a reason you want to make your data completely deleted? I’ve only come across this at work with our over zealous IT dept.

On the odd occasion when I’ve binned a drive after it’s failed I’ve put an axe through it before I put it in the recycling.

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I do this when I want to sell working drives. It’s often nonsensical to keep moving old drives around when they represent a fraction of the total storage space. For example, I recently passed an old 128 GB or 256 GB SSD to my brother as I now have a 1TB + 2 TB NVMe + 1TB SATA SSD setup. Expanding total storage space by 1/16 or less the current total is not worth the hassle and that SSD is worth much more to someone else with less SSD storage in their rig.

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Thanks @Freak. That makes perfect sense. I have a drive to my nephew that I’d “wiped”. It kit as thoroughly as this.

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@keets, Well like has been said If I ever sell off the old drive no info will be left for prying eyes and another reason If I get a worm/Virus it will totally kill it in the drive with the wipe of the drive…

I have gotten a few worms that have infected the BIOS as well. I guess a little paranoid of those things so I just want to be sure it gets rid of it totally when I do a wipe and reinstall.

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Hey guys,

Small update I found the issue the WindowsM.2 drive was overheating and that was causing my issue that I thought was a virus but it was just the drive overheating causing all kinds of stuttering…

So It seems RedKey is good to go for sure as it was not Redkey causing my issue I guess it was a coincedence of things converging but it was just an overheating drive…

Gonna try and contqact Samsung about an RMA for the defective drive and voila… So all is well here and if you want a really cool program to wipe drives with this is pretty cool. Good thing is you can just purchase the standalone redkey which is not to expensive vs the kit I bought which had all 3 keys and such… Investment well worth it for me… as I am the familiy IT guy…

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Glad it was a simple problem like that (though hard to diagnose) and not a virus.

Which model Samsung NVMe M.2 drive is it? Is it the 980 Pro or another PCIe 4 drive?

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IT was a Samsung M.2 970 Plus 1TB drive… I am glad it was just the drive that was defective and not a virus too…

I mailed it off yesterday and just waiting to hear back from Samsung if they will be sending me another drive…

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