Bad sector HDDs

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?

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.