erasing faulty hard drive

Phil Allison wrote:

** Doing any such thing will likely void the warranty.

Brute force, bulk erasure usually renders a hard drive unusable cos it
remove files put there by the manufacturer.

what files?

"terryc" <newsninespam-spam_at_woa.com.au> wrote in message
news:jahpar$lug$2_at_dont-email.me...
Phil Allison wrote:

** Doing any such thing will likely void the warranty.

Brute force, bulk erasure usually renders a hard drive unusable cos it
remove files put there by the manufacturer.
what files?


Its not files as dingo boy said - its commonly referred to as; "servowrite"
one platter side has servo ident markers to identify track & sector
positions.

If you erase that you effectively 'blind' the head positioner servo, the
onboard micro will decide that whatever's gone wrong is so bad all it can do
is give up and sulk.

"terryc"<newsninespam-spam_at_woa.com.au> wrote in message
news:jahpar$lug$2_at_dont-email.me...
Phil Allison wrote:

** Doing any such thing will likely void the warranty.

Brute force, bulk erasure usually renders a hard drive unusable cos it
remove files put there by the manufacturer.

what files?


Its not files as dingo boy said - its commonly referred to as; "servowrite"
one platter side has servo ident markers to identify track& sector
positions.

If you erase that you effectively 'blind' the head positioner servo, the
onboard micro will decide that whatever's gone wrong is so bad all it can do
is give up and sulk.

On 24/11/2011 9:59 AM, Ian Field wrote:
"terryc"<newsninespam-spam_at_woa.com.au> wrote in message
news:jahpar$lug$2_at_dont-email.me...
Phil Allison wrote:

** Doing any such thing will likely void the warranty.

Brute force, bulk erasure usually renders a hard drive unusable cos it
remove files put there by the manufacturer.

what files?


Its not files as dingo boy said - its commonly referred to as;
"servowrite"
one platter side has servo ident markers to identify track& sector
positions.

Thats the way it was int the old days. These days, the servo information
is interspersed with the data. Commodity disks only have one platter so
there is nowhere for a dedicated servo surface, and even with enterprise
drives with several platters use th esame system in order to cram a
maximum amount of data on the drive. There are blocks of data that the
manufacturer puts on the drive with things like bad block lists, but they
aren't files in the conventional sense.

If you erase that you effectively 'blind' the head positioner servo, the
onboard micro will decide that whatever's gone wrong is so bad all it can
do
is give up and sulk.

If you were to manage to degauss the drive, you might as well have hit it
with a sledgehammer.

We have a WD 2TB green hard drive that has failed, it will not even be
recognised when connected to the pc.  It will have to go back under
warranty, but is there any way of wiping the data from it first ?  IE
degaussing wand, large magnet etc ?

On Nov 22, 6:33 pm, kreed<kenreed1...@gmail.com> wrote:
We have a WD 2TB green hard drive that has failed, it will not even be
recognised when connected to the pc. It will have to go back under
warranty, but is there any way of wiping the data from it first ? IE
degaussing wand, large magnet etc ?




Seems as though it is working again, but only when laid upside down,
and only when plugged directly to the SATA connector on a PC
motherboard. Will not work in a USB case, but identical ones
(WD20EARS) will. Strange

Am erasing data now while it keeps working before returning it.
Fortunately was nowhere near full.

Check out sdelete utility (part of SysInternals suite), you probably want run it once you delete your files.

We have a WD 2TB green hard drive that has failed, it will not even be
recognised when connected to the pc. It will have to go back under
warranty, but is there any way of wiping the data from it first ? IE
degaussing wand, large magnet etc ?

On 2011-11-22, kreed <kenreed1999_at_gmail.com> wrote:
We have a WD 2TB green hard drive that has failed, it will not even be
recognised when connected to the pc. It will have to go back under
warranty, but is there any way of wiping the data from it first ? IE
degaussing wand, large magnet etc ?

Nothing that won't void the warranty.
is secrecy worth the price of the drive?

"Jasen Betts" <ja...@xnet.co.nz> wrote in message

news:jb23ap$1aa$1_at_reversiblemaps.ath.cx...

On 2011-11-22, kreed <kenreed1...@gmail.com> wrote:
We have a WD 2TB green hard drive that has failed, it will not even be
recognised when connected to the pc.  It will have to go back under
warranty, but is there any way of wiping the data from it first ?  IE
degaussing wand, large magnet etc ?

Nothing that won't void the warranty.
is secrecy worth the price of the drive?

The OP has posted elsewhere that the drive seems to work laid upside down -
with any luck, long enough to scrub the disk with a data wipe.

Yes, and it just keeps working and working. strangely, if you turn it
over it will just "stop", but wont crash the computer. (as though you
have pushed the "pause" button on that drive window), but turning
back, it will just work again. Really weird