Hard Drive testing

I am sure this has been covered before, so after I post this I am going to search the forum.

However, I bought 110 Imac G3 a little bit ago and they all have HDs. So now I have 110 HDs (from 10.2GB- 20GB) all IDE and all Seagate. I see that there is a market on eBay for them.

Now I need to test them. Is there a good IDE/SATA tester out there that will test the HD and then allow me to wipe it?



Thanks for the answers

I agree with what the others have said. BUT, if you want an on-da-cheap way to test them, here is one I use and it has more than paid for itself. I make a few bucks retrieving files/folders for people, test drives to see if they are even worth putting in a box and shipping to PTS, or just scrap. (then do a quick format before they get tossed in a box for shipping) It has card readers, and adds a few extra USB ports, to whatever machine you are going to use it on.

The down side is that the power connector plug, on older IDE drives, may prevent the drive from sliding right into the dock. (slightly different position on the drive) I have the guts from an old USB external drive case, that I added a longer power connector and drive ribbon to, and it allows me to test those and some of the vintage drives, that will not fit in a docking station.

If you can sell a small "lot" of them on fleabay after testing, you may get enough to pay for it, and learn in the process. Me, anytime I can turn a pile of sCrap into a tool, I do! jus my 2 BroJer

What do you guys consider vintage? And yes they all have Apple OS on them.

They sell on eBay for $4-$10 each.

Originally Posted by BroJer

I agree with what the others have said. BUT, if you want an on-da-cheap way to test them, here is one I use and it has more than paid for itself. I make a few bucks retrieving files/folders for people, test drives to see if they are even worth putting in a box and shipping to PTS, or just scrap. (then do a quick format before they get tossed in a box for shipping) It has card readers, and adds a few extra USB ports, to whatever machine you are going to use it on.

The down side is that the power connector plug, on older IDE drives, may prevent the drive from sliding right into the dock. (slightly different position on the drive) I have the guts from an old USB external drive case, that I added a longer power connector and drive ribbon to, and it allows me to test those and some of the vintage drives, that will not fit in a docking station.

If you can sell a small "lot" of them on fleabay after testing, you may get enough to pay for it, and learn in the process. Me, anytime I can turn a pile of sCrap into a tool, I do! jus my 2 BroJer

Thanks Just purchased it and I also have a longer power connector and drive ribbon to add!

I use something like this: Removable Wide SCSI Drive Mounting Kit - Mounts 3.5" Wide SCSI Drive in a 5.25" Bay, with Module, Frame, and Cables, Beige

Mine is well over 10 years old though and does not have a SATA connector. I have this mounted in a computer, and I boot Knoppix from a thumb drive. I use the fdisk command and gparted for partitioning and formatting, and the shred command for overwriting.