Hi Peter,
To mass erase the HCS12 family it is necessary to reset it into one of the special modes. This is done using the reset pin so this is required. It might be possible to use a power-on-reset but it was not supported on earlier devices and I do not think it was changed for the 9S12G family.
The USBDM software assumes a reset connection.
This is different to the HCS08 family.
bye
