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 wouldnt bother testing anything under 40gb to resell on ebay unless its vintage.

i'd say those are scrap....The only way they might sell is because they might have the apple OS on them.....I had a bunch of them and would power up the computer to check the drives....I actually sold a few on ebay and scrapped the rest

agreed theres not much resale value on drives in the 2gb-40gb range, 10-20gb really isnt considered vintage either

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.

Quote:

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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

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

vintage is less than 2gb in size in my opinion

i have seen scsi drives in the 2gb-40gb range do well in resale but not ide's

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.

Thanks to the OP for asking this, I have been wonder what others use myself. Think I am going to go with the docking station on eBay.