Bad sector HDDs

[winpc]

Picked up x2 sata 3.5" HDDs from ebay, x1 160gb Seagate, x1 320gb WD.

Both drives appear to be faulty when I tried to wipe them with Killdisk, loads off bad sectors and the process stalled.


Tried one of the drives with HDD Regenerator and it just flagged up all bad sectors from the start.


Anyone know how to bring them back to life?

 

[valis]

first thing I would do is to run the seagate diagnostic on them.

 

[winpc]

No go with the manufacturer's software sadly - it advised returning the drives under warranty.


2nd hand of ebay, got at full refund from the seller so I dismantled the drives and ground the surfaces with my powerfile destroy any data.

 

[valis]

that will do it too, I guess.

 

[winpc]

No ferrite layer on the platter's surface, no data.

I was once told by local PC recycling company that they had a machine that ground the entire platter to powder.

 

[valis]

Yup. It is spooky how much data remains, even after something like a zero fill like dban uses. And thats DOD certed, I think.

 

[winpc]

From what you say I presume you've actually recovered data after a DBAN wipe ?


Years ago I watched a documentary where folk had thrown their old PCs out with hard drive still in.

The documentary makers had gone to an Asian country, recovered some of these PCs, taken out the drives, extracted data and gone to the homes of the ex PC owners and shocked the hell out them with such as bank account details.

 

[valis]

God no, that stuff is waaay above my paygrade. I did see some show years ago where some guy took his hd out, removed everything but the platens, drilled a few 5/8 in holes in them, tied it to his bumper, and drove to the studio. Some tech (still pretty sure he was gubmint) pulled a LOT of data off. In about an hour.

Spooky. At a previous job dban wasn't allowed, even though it was dod-m certed. We had to shred/melt the platens.

 

[winpc]

Shredding or melting the platters down is certainly the ultimate.


Including the two I've just destroyed, I've had to dismantle and destroy four hard drives.

Hitachi Deskstar x2, the platters were ferrite coated glass platters which simply smashed in to bits.
Socket out of a mechanic's socket set placed over the platter arbor and hit with a hammer.

The Seagate and WD ones I've just destroyed had ferrite coated aluminium platters so once the ferrite coating was ground off - job done - aluminium can't be magnetized.

 

[vembutech]

Here some information on bad sectors http://www.howtogeek.com/173463/bad...get-bad-sectors-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/ which may assist you with some idea.

 

[winpc]

Many thanks for the link vembutech, it will make interesting reading.


I suspect however that the bad sectors on the two HDDs I recently destroyed were due to faulty controller cards. I tried HDD Regenerator on both drives with Scan Only mode and both times it flagged up all bad sectors form the start.