What happen to bad hard drives

[scbail]

I recently had a hard drive (18 gb) go bad and being that the system
had a maintenance contract, the old hard drive was replaced by a new
drive. After the new drive was installed, the old drive was sent
back.

My question is, what does the company do with the old hard drive?
Will they refurbish it? If so, will the data that is on the drive be
erased? Or will the hard drive be destroyed?

Thanks,

Scott

 

[Rod Speed]

I recently had a hard drive (18 gb) go bad and being that the system
had a maintenance contract, the old hard drive was replaced by a new
drive. After the new drive was installed, the old drive was sent back.

My question is, what does the company do with the old hard drive?

A drive that small is just binned, it has no real value.

Will they refurbish it?

Very unlikely.

If so, will the data that is on the drive be erased?

Yes, if it is refurbished. Not if its just binned, essentially
because it cant be erased if the drive isnt working.

Or will the hard drive be destroyed?

Normally not if the contract doesnt say that.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I recently had a hard drive (18 gb) go bad and being that the system
had a maintenance contract, the old hard drive was replaced by a new
drive. After the new drive was installed, the old drive was sent
back.

My question is, what does the company do with the old hard drive?
Will they refurbish it? If so, will the data that is on the drive be
erased? Or will the hard drive be destroyed?

Professionally done, they will overwrite the surface. However there
have been numerous instances were HDDs were repaired (or were not bad
in the first place) and have turned up on eBay with the data basically
intact and easily recoverd. The only thing you can trust after the
fact is erasing it yourself with a complete overwrite (format is just
filesystem creation, it leaves most data intact and recoverable). If
you cannot do that overwrite, then bite it and do physical destruction.
Opening the drive and bending the platters is enough.

The other option is to use drive encryption. Then you need not be
concerned, unless you use some bad, not peer-reviewed method,
usually identifiable by the claims that they are even better than
standard encryption shemes.

Arno

 

[Scott B]

A drive that small is just binned, it has no real value.


Very unlikely.


Yes, if it is refurbished. Not if its just binned, essentially
because it cant be erased if the drive isnt working.


Normally not if the contract doesnt say that.

What exactly does binned mean?

Scott

 

[Arno Wagner]

What exactly does binned mean?

Stored somewhere for later dealing with. Can be trashed, re-sold (to
people that may try to repair), repaired later, or any other thing you
can imagine.

So basically ''binned'' can mean anything, just not right now.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

What exactly does binned mean?

Throw it away, toss it in the rubbish bin.

 

[zappo]

Stored somewhere for later dealing with.

Nope, common english useage is thrown in the rubbish bin
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=7492&dict=CALD

Can be trashed, re-sold (to people that may try to repair),
repaired later, or any other thing you can imagine.

So basically ''binned'' can mean anything, just not right now.

Fraid not.

 

[Paul J. Hurley]

Or you can try one of these:

http://tinyurl.com/2nb2cm

Paul

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Stored somewhere for later dealing with. Can be trashed, re-sold (to
people that may try to repair), repaired later, or any other thing you
can imagine.

So basically ''binned'' can mean anything, just not right now.

Good answer, babblebot. One of your finer moments?