If you need help with your purchase, send an e-mail back in reply to the order confirmation that was sent after you purchased Parted Magic. Your order details stay with this method of communication, which allows us to provide a much quicker response. We try to answer all emails within 1-2 business days.

To ask pre-sales questions, general questions, etc., please visit the Contact page. Below are answers to many of the most common questions we’ve been asked. Our old support forum has been replaced by this support page, which is better organized and makes it easier to find what you’re looking for. If your question still can’t be found on this page, follow one of the options listed above.

Can Parted Magic securely erase individual files?

No. Secure Erase works on the whole drive: the command it sends to the drive’s firmware will completely wipe out all information on the entire device (not just the file). Secure deletion of a specific file is not possible on an SSD as the drive continuously re-positions/changes locations of existing files across its physical components to distribute wear on those elements, and it keeps old copies in places the operating system cannot reach. Thus, the only method that can ensure complete removal of previously used space on an SSD is a full Secure Erase of the entire device. When using an SSD with sensitive data, a complete wipe of the device should always be performed by going through a full Secure Erase operation. If you’ve already removed files but wish for them to be gone, simply go into the Erase menu on the Parted Magic desktop and select Wipe Free Space. This operation will overwrite the free space on a partition so the deleted files are unable to be recovered again, while leaving the rest of your files intact.

Does Parted Magic run on Windows?

No. Parted Magic is a Linux system started from either a USB drive or DVD, and it does not install on Windows. The firmware erase commands (ATA Secure Erase, NVMe Format, Sanitize) erase a whole drive. A full drive erase command will only work when you have booted into another operating system because your computer cannot run an erase function on the same disk it has loaded from. Start the computer from Parted Magic instead, and the drive Windows was on can be erased like any other.

How many computers can I use my license on?

You may use your Parted Magic license as often as you want on any number of computers with no restrictions for erasing any number of disks. You do not pay by disk or computer.

Does Parted Magic securely erase SSDs, NVMe, and M.2 drives?

Yes, all of the above. Parted Magic uses each drive’s own firmware erase command to wipe drives, and it will automatically choose the method from what the drive that you are using supports:

  • SATA SSDs and HDDs: ATA Sanitize (Block Erase, Crypto Scramble or Overwrite), or ATA Secure Erase and Enhanced Secure Erase on drives without Sanitize
  • NVMe drives (including M.2 NVMe): NVMe Sanitize (Block Erase, Crypto Erase or Overwrite), or NVMe Format with User Data Erase or Cryptographic Erase on drives without Sanitize
  • SAS and SCSI drives: SCSI Sanitize (Block Erase, Overwrite or Cryptographic Erase), or SCSI Format Unit on drives without Sanitize
  • eMMC storage: an Erase of the whole user area followed by Sanitize, or eMMC Secure Erase on older devices without Sanitize
  • Self-encrypting drives (TCG Opal): when one refuses its own erase command, as the drives in many Lenovo ThinkPads do, Parted Magic erases it cryptographically by resetting the drive’s encryption key. A drive locked with an unknown password is unlocked with a PSID Revert, using the code printed on its label, and then erased.

NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2 classifies the SATA, NVMe and SAS/SCSI commands and the cryptographic wipe of self-encrypting drives as Purge-level erasure, meaning they can be used for decommissioning, reselling or repurposing a drive containing sensitive data. eMMC drives offer an Erase and Sanitize (Clear-level) and an older Secure Erase (also Clear). If the firmware wipe option does not exist (like on a USB flash drive), or if the drive refuses its own firmware wipe (and is not self-encrypting), then Parted Magic will overwrite it instead; this too is a Clear-level wipe, and the certificate will show the level that was achieved. There is a feature to switch to overwrite on a drive where you do not wish to rely on the firmware’s own erase command, known as Block Wipe. M.2 drives are fully supported in both SATA and NVMe versions.

Does Parted Magic provide a certificate of destruction?

Yes. The PDF Certificate of Sanitization that Erase generates for each drive it sanitizes will include information about the model, serial number, storage capacity and type of media the drive contains. Besides this data, it also includes the technique used to erase the drive, the sanitization level (as defined by NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2) achieved during the process and the verification result. This document also lists the time at which the sanitization began, as well as the time at which it ended. There are designated spaces for the signatures of a technician who performed the sanitization, a person responsible for validating the sanitization results and a witness. If you need to physically destroy a drive rather than just sanitize it (shred or crush it), you can use the “Destroy” button on the Erase screen where you select which drives you want to sanitize; it makes a Certificate of Physical Destruction. Both come with Erase; there is no add-on to buy.

How do I boot Parted Magic from USB?

Once purchased, you will get a download link for your Parted Magic ISO file. Parted Magic comes with its own USB installer, located in the install directory within the ISO. The stick it creates will boot whether using legacy BIOS or UEFI with Secure Boot turned on. The installer also checks each of the files written to the new drive prior to telling you that the writing was successful.

  • Windows 10 and 11: double-click the ISO to open it, go into the install folder, and run pmusb-gui.exe
  • Linux: the same folder has the installer as a .deb, an .rpm and a Slackware .txz package
  • macOS: the installer has no Mac version yet. Use balenaEtcher version 2.1.8, from its release page: balenaEtcher-2.1.8-arm64.dmg for a Mac with Apple silicon, balenaEtcher-2.1.8-x64.dmg for an Intel Mac. A Mac with Apple silicon can write the stick, but it cannot boot Parted Magic.

Rufus, balenaEtcher and Ventoy also work if you already use one of them.

Once the USB drive is created, plug it into your target machine and start the machine from it. On most computers, pressing F12, F11, Esc or Del at startup allows you to select which device to use; the key depends on the manufacturer. From there, Parted Magic starts to a desktop where you can then launch whatever application you wish to run.

For step-by-step instructions on all three operating systems, see the Parted Magic installation guide.

My Lenovo shows “Secure Boot Violation” when I boot the USB drive. What do I do?

On many newer Lenovo computers, when booting from the Parted Magic USB, the error message Secure Boot Violation will appear along with Invalid signature detected. Check Secure Boot Policy in Setup. Parted Magic is able to boot while Secure Boot is enabled; however, these models ship with one of the Secure Boot options disabled by default: the option that trusts boot loaders Microsoft signs for operating systems that are not Windows.

To enable this setting, you will first need to access your BIOS setup menu at power-up (F1 on ThinkPads). From within your BIOS setup menu go to Security > Secure Boot and set Allow Microsoft 3rd Party UEFI CA to On. Press the F10 key to save and exit. After exiting your BIOS setup menu, insert your Parted Magic USB into your computer and attempt to boot again. Secure Boot stays on as it was previously; there is no need to disable it.

If Windows on your computer uses BitLocker encryption and you plan to keep it, have your recovery key readily available. When you make any change to your Secure Boot settings, you may be prompted for the recovery key at startup.

My download came with a .asc file that won’t open. What is it?

It’s a digital signature for the ISO. There are no programs to install since this is simply a small text file, and you do not need it to use Parted Magic. The ISO you will be using (the larger of the two) is beside the digital signature and has a size a little over 2 GB. Its name should end in .iso. That is the file you write to a USB drive.

If you choose to verify it, it allows you to ensure that the ISO came from us and was not modified or damaged during transit. Verifying the digital signature is optional. A simple verification method is to check the checksum listed in your account alongside your download; the ISO checksum guide shows how on Windows, macOS and Linux. Windows does not come with GnuPG. Install Gpg4win to get it, and use Command Prompt or PowerShell for the commands below. If you have GnuPG installed, you can verify the digital signature by running these two commands in the folder containing both files, with your own file name in the second one:

gpg --fetch-keys https://partedmagic.com/store/GPG-KEY
gpg --verify pmagic_26.10_3.iso.asc

A good ISO reports Good signature from "Patrick Verner <sales@partedmagic.com>". GnuPG then warns that the key is not certified with a trusted signature. That only means you haven’t certified our key yourself; what matters is that the fingerprint it prints is F674 69C6 8A0B 8FC1 70B2 B1B5 6C49 227C 1EBA 24AD.

Booting stops partway with a “wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock” error. What do I do?

If the “copying files to RAM” step stalls partway through with an error like:

mount: /run/br_sqfs: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

…and then you see a red message saying that mounting the .SQFS file has failed and that you are now at the command line, the compressed filesystem on your boot media was not able to be read as a whole. The data within the filesystem is corrupted. This is NOT a compatibility issue with RAM or hardware. There can only be two reasons for this type of failure: your downloaded ISO was corrupted, or your flash drive is bad.

First, verify your ISO against the published checksum. If they do not match, download the ISO again. If they match (are identical), the flash drive is at fault: write the ISO to a different USB drive and boot again. Flash drives can fail unexpectedly. They may appear to complete writing correctly, but upon reading the information from them, some data is found to be corrupt. Writing the ISO to another flash drive typically corrects this problem.

Parted Magic doesn’t detect my NVMe or M.2 SSD. Why?

Almost always, when an NVMe or M.2 SSD shows up as “missing” from the list of drives in Parted Magic, and the SATA drives are listed normally within the same machine, it is because of a BIOS setting. Most Dell computers are shipped with the storage controller set to RAID On (which is Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology) instead of AHCI. Other hardware vendors also ship their machines with this type of configuration using names such as Intel RST, RST Premium, Optane etc. In this mode, the chipset hides the NVMe drive behind Intel’s RAID controller. Since there is no Intel RST driver for Linux, Linux has absolutely no visibility into the drive. Thus, Erase, VisParted, Disk Health, and all other programs within Parted Magic will be unable to see anything (therefore report nothing).

To fix this issue you need to enter BIOS setup upon power on (the F2 key works for Dell computers) and search for SATA Operation under System Configuration. Newer versions of Dell firmware may have this option located in SATA/NVMe Operation under Storage. You need to change the option from RAID On to AHCI (or AHCI/NVMe), save and exit, then boot Parted Magic again. The drive should now be visible.

Two things to consider before changing it:

  • If Windows is installed on that computer, normal boot of Windows will be disrupted by changing the controller mode, but this doesn’t matter if you’re about to wipe the drive. If you plan to continue using Windows on that computer, switch the BIOS back to RAID On once complete, or go through your manufacturer’s instructions for changing Windows over to AHCI permanently.
  • If the drive is still missing when in AHCI mode, also check the BIOS to make sure it lists the drive as part of its system information. The only other possible cause, where neither the BIOS nor the OS sees the drive, is that the drive is not properly seated, or the drive itself has failed. No program running on that machine can access it if the BIOS cannot.

The easiest way to verify what the operating system (OS) can see is by running lsblk within a terminal window in Parted Magic to view all of the block devices that the OS has recognized, or nvme list if you are using an NVMe device. If your drive is missing from both listings, then you should check the BIOS setting above, as this is usually where you find the issue.

I lost my download email. What do I do?

Not a problem. Send an e-mail to sales@partedmagic.com with the name and email address associated with the purchase and we will send you another copy of your download link. Providing your order number also helps us process your request faster; however, it is optional.