Terminal - diskutil secureErase freespace not working

[disco-trooper]

Hey, I'm trying to erase free space on main volume using diskutil secureErase freespace command, but I'm getting "Erasing freespace only works on mounted and writable volumes". Any ideas please?

 

[iMacDragon]

Wrong volume, at least, you're trying to erase freespace on the non writable system volume, not the data volume.

 

[disco-trooper]

Wrong volume, at least, you're trying to erase freespace on the non writable system volume, not the data volume.

Sorry for being dense, but how do I specify the writable data volume in the diskutil erase command?

 

[iMacDragon]

"Macintosh HD - Data" not "Macintosh HD" is the volume with user data on catalina.

Though it does look iike it can't be referred like that due to the way system is setup to combine them virtually.. hmm.

 

[disco-trooper]

Yes, I'm having problems referring to it. Specifying /Volumes/Macintosh HD - Data does not work.

 

[Ritsuka]

secureErase is useless on a SSD anyway.

 

[iMacDragon]

Try /System/Volumes/Data

But, yeah, on SSD secure erase is not necessarily that useful due to how allocation works so differently to HDD's.

 

[disco-trooper]

Ah, alright then. Thank you for your help guys.