How to Determine Hard Drive Type

This article will explain how to determine what type of drive your computer has installed. This is for determining what data wipe procedure to follow.

Note: The following procedure is for Dell computers only.

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Determining Hard Drive Type using Dell BIOS

You can usually determine the type of drives you have in your system using the UEFI BIOS Setup. Power down your Dell. Then power it up and press [F2] when you see the Dell Logo to get to the UEFI BIOS Setup.

Dell BIOS - Logo

Press the [↓] arrow on your keyboard (use the mouse pointer if available) until you get to System Information and then press [Enter].

Dell BIOS - General

In the section Device Information, we can see there is a drive in SATA-0 and in M.2 and hence we know we have a SATA interface and a M.2 interface in this system.

Dell BIOS - System Info

There is also a System Configuration field. This can be expanded by pressing [Enter].

Dell BIOS - System Config

There is a sub-field called Drives. Highlighting this shows that the drive in SATA-0 is a Crucial CT240M500SSD1 and in M.2 is a Samsung MZVPW256HEGL-000L7.

Dell BIOS - Drives

As always if you run into any issues please contact the Extension IT Helpdesk at extensionit-help@illinois.edu.  

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Keywords:
DBAN, Deletion, Surplus, Secure Erase, Sanitize, Wipe Hard Drive, Parted Magic, USB, Dell Data Wipe, Hard Drive Type, SSD, SATA 
Doc ID:
117110
Owned by:
Shauna S. in University of Illinois Extension KB
Created:
2022-03-03
Updated:
2024-05-15
Sites:
University of Illinois Extension KB